Fragile
by Maiden of Mercy
Summary: A man who should be dead awakes in Silent Hill, locked in the fate of a young girl. They are stalked by their sins, drawing them into a web of unspeakable horrors. But the biggest danger of all may be the man himself... contains Pyramid Head and OCs
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Here it is, my new multichapter story. I hope you enjoy it. I've put a lot of work into it. If you'd like to see more, pop in a little review to remind me to add the new chapter. Thanks xxx**

**DISCLAIMER FOR FULL STORY: I do not own Silent Hill or Pyramid Head, or the nurses. Everything else is mine, unless you recognise it.  
**

Within Silent Hill

Flesh oozed from beneath the blade.

The butchered meat was alive with maggots and feasting cockroaches, festering as it lay in the dark basement. Blood oozed from the body to the iron floor. Drop by drop. Little by little. Purging the last of the life within.

Faint groans emitted from the victim's dry throat. What remained of its face was strapped tight in mouldy bandages, barely containing the twitching muscle beneath. Even so, the creature fought for release. It didn't know that all hope was gone, drained away with the last of its crimson fluids. The poor thing pleaded in cracked sobs, hands upturned beseechingly to the light. It was begging for mercy.

The Executioner released a grating, mirthless chuckle at the mere thought of such a thing.

_Mercy_? That word was obsolete. It was a lie, a tale for children, a fairytale.

Only the truly damned would dare make such a pitiful request in his presence.

For he _had_ no mercy.

Hands gripped rotting thighs, hips thrusted in shattered spaces. Screams died within mouldering meat. Pleasure was taken where pain was wrought and loathing made love with hate.

_Welcome to Silent Hill, my friends._

_Here, the nightmare begins. _

* * *

He came from the darkness, a pale streak in the gloom. Tears crusted on a colourless face, blood congealed in dishevelled hair. He looked a mess, a miserable, godforsaken mess. It would be no surprise to anyone who saw him that he did not have long left in this realm of living. It was an inescapable fact.

It was such a shame.

He was _so_ young, so pathetic, scarcely into his twenties yet already aged with trauma. His grubby forehead was crisscrossed with lines, and shadows hugged his lids. These factors, along with the filth upon him, made him a truly wretched sight. But his eyes were most dismal of all. Their bloodshot whites stretched wide in the car headlamps, pupils wide and empty. They flicked to and fro in his sockets with intense paranoia. It was obvious that he was afraid of being followed… or hunted down.

When he eventually reached the end of the sidewalk, the young man ceased his desperate run. Standing there alone he gathered himself together, taking long deep breaths and running his hands through pale hair. His expression, sorrowful as it was, echoed that of an abandoned child: lost, isolated, hopeless.

He waited there, sad and solitary, until the road before him was a seething mass of vehicles.

Then he stepped out amongst them.

Entire chaos broke out. There was an ear-splitting crash of metal on metal and tyres screeched, glass shattering over the tarmac. Exhaust filled the air. Women screamed. Crowds pushed forth. There were so many people rushing to the scene that the traffic was forced to grind to a complete halt. But at first, the extent of the accident could not be seen through the smoke rising from the wreckage. However, it gradually cleared to uncover a truly gruesome sight. The road flowed with blood and mangled flesh, peppered with the occasional hanks of grisly hair.

But of the unkempt young man there was no sign.

After a baffled silence, a child's voice piped up innocently.

"Where'd he go, Mommy?"

* * *

Dreams

_I walk my nightmare as if reliving a memory. _

_I _am_**,**__ in a way, give or take a few details._

_The world is black and white, like all my dreams, but I know the young girl beside me wears a stark red dress. Blood red. I admire its prettiness openly, stroking the smooth material with one hand. The girl preens and flicks honeyed curls over her shoulder, lashes aflutter. _She's_ pretty too- dangerously so. Every move she makes has the grace of a delicate princess. She's almost painful to behold._

"_You are so beautiful," I murmur. I reach out a hand, touching her silken cheek. "You know that, right?"_

_The pretty one giggles, her lips a pout of mirth. I feel the strong urge to touch them, kiss them, devour them. But I do not show it. The only outward sign of my burning need is a slight shaking _she_ hasn't noticed._

"Look at you," I continue. "You're flawless."

Laughter comes again. The girl is flattered by my adoration. Blushing modestly, she takes my hand in hers and fondles it. Her touch sends sparks down my spine, setting my body alight. I bring her pale palm to my lips and kiss it rapturously. The girl smirks. Even that small gesture makes her features glow.

I kiss her hand again, then again. I cannot help myself. My mouth moves up her wrist, arm, and shoulder. Lovingly, feverishly tasting her flesh.

The girl tilts her head and moans in self-indulgent pleasure. To me, the sound is perfection. It drives me insane. Almost greedily, I kiss the hollow of her throat and flick my tongue across her collarbone. My friend spasms with ecstasy and encircles my neck with her slim arms. She wants more… as do I.

Continuing with my caresses, I carry the girl across to the bed and lay her upon it.

"Jewel," I say plainly. That one word states everything I want to say.

"Well, I love you too," Jewel responds, and pulls my head down to hers. Our lips meet innocently, but soon move into something more adult. Tongues touch, hands fumble, breath quickens. My fists tangle in her vanilla hair. In my passion I bite Jewel's lower lip and pierce the skin. But she licks the blood sensually away. I shiver. Unable to restrain myself any longer, I part her legs and slide my hand between them. I feel the warmth and arousal there.

Jewel arches her back. I see a crystal tear squeeze out and brush it away.

"You're an angel," I gasp into her ear. My fingers entwine tenderly with hers. "Look at yourself. Go on."

Both of us turn towards the mirror on the opposite wall. It reflects a girl barely into her teens and a very young man. Both pairs of eyes are shining with carnal hunger. We smile at this wanton image, admiring it together. I think it's beautiful.

But then something terrible happens.

In the mirror, Jewel's cherubic face greys like ash and her mouth gapes wide in an almost reptilian fashion. Those doll-like cheeks of hers are marred with an ugly crust of yellowed tears.

I am appalled beyond words. My eyes flicker with horrified enthralment across Jewel's reflection, stopping dead at her sinuous neck. A brutal slit is ripping across her jugular. Steaming blood splashes out onto the bedclothes. As I watch speechlessly, the girl's head flops back. Dead. Repulsed, I glance back to the real Jewel and gag in disgust. She is as maimed as her grisly image.

Sweat breaks out on my forehead. I clamber rapidly from Jewel's body with closed eyes, hoping it is an illusion. But it's not. When I look again, her thighs are splayed lewdly apart to unveil her mangled girlhood.

"Oh my god," I moan, feeling my guts squeeze. Jewel's limp head is straightening itself. The once sweet expression twists as she smiles sickeningly at me. Then she parts her rosebud mouth and **screams**.

* * *

A Strange Place

The young man jerked awake with a sharp gasp. His shook his head groggily from side to side, groaning heavily. The whole of his body ached and he felt cramped and uncomfortable. He didn't know where he was.

Something touched his mouth.

The man snapped his head round at once. He spotted a small figure crouching at his side and reared away immediately, back rammed up against a rough wall.

It was a little girl.

She peered at him shrewdly, dark eyes narrowed in the gloom. She had an unruly mane of black hair and an unhealthy complexion. This would have made her seem rather ordinary if her face had not been full of sly mischief.

"Hi," said the girl, flopping down beside him. "Nice to see you're awake. You've been out for at least half an hour."

"Um… Out? What do you mean?"

The man recalled the cars, the crash, the blinding lights. He remembered a huge vehicle hitting him head on at over 60. Gears screaming, horn blaring...

But he didn't know how it had happened, only that it had occurred.

I should have **died**, he thought. I'm lucky to be alive.

"Oh yeah," he mumbled. "Well, I'm awake now."

The girl grinned wickedly.

"I can see that. So what's your name, mister?"

"Sam," the man replied, feeling a little dazed. He sat up and grunted. "Sam Reeves. And… I hope you don't mind me asking, but who're are you?"

He paused, rubbing his forehead.

"And where the hell am I?"

The girl smiled, almost proudly.

I'm Alison," said the girl. "And this-"

She waved her arm majestically around the grubby room.

"-Is the town of Silent Hill."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Silent Hill?" Sam repeated, rolling Alison's words around his mind. He shook his head in dumb bewilderment. "I don't understand. Last thing I remember, I was in New York being hit by a truck. So how did I end up here? Did you see anybody… with me?"

The girl, Alison, gave an evasive shrug of her shoulders. Sam looked her up and down. She didn't dress like a normal girl, although in most other respects she was rather average. Garish black and red stockings clung to her pale, stocky legs, contrasting painfully with the old fashioned pinafore she wore. Her feet were crammed into pointed leather shoes that looked at least one size too small for her. All in all, she looked rather peculiar. But Sam found himself liking her appearance all the same, although he mistrusted her. She had a vixenish cast to her face that made him suspect there was scheming mind under that dark mass of hair.

"You were lying flat out when I found you, mister," said Alison suddenly. "And I only arrived about an hour ago."

She paused, twiddling her skirt in her hands.

"I always wanted to come here. I heard it's haunted. I'm not gonna leave till I find a ghost. Apparently there's this guy with a huge knife twice my size."

"Uh… that's nice, Alison."

Sam got unsteadily to his feet. He put a hand to his head and grunted. A fraction of something stirred in his head, a leftover from a dream or a memory he did not truly remember. He could sense it drilling into his head, settling there to taunt him. It made him dizzy with confusion. He staggered a little and braced himself against the wall.

"You ok, mister? You don't look too good. Here, let me help you…"

Sam looked down at Alison and sniffed. What help could she be? She was just a strange, noisy little girl. She would bring him nothing but endless trouble, like all children did.

"Call me Sam," he snapped wearily. "And I'm fine. I… just want to get out of here and go home, maybe found out what the heck happened to me. So good luck with your ghost-hunting, or whatever."

He advanced towards a rusted, half-broken door opposite him. A persistently tugging hand stopped him dead. When he glanced over his shoulder, Sam the girl's weird, peak face peeping up at him.

"Wait," pleaded Alison. "You don't know the way out. I can show you."

Sam rolled his eyes, lightly pushing her away.

"I have GTS on my cell phone," he said, patting his pocket. "I'll be fine."

Yet again he tried to leave. Alison changed tack rapidly. She widened her eyes and clasped her hands, making herself look naive and vulnerable. Sam had to admit she pulled it off very well.

"Do you really wanna leave me alone in this big, empty town?" she asked earnestly. "I'm completely helpless. I'm only sixteen years old…"

Sam stared at her. "You're sixteen? You look about twelve."

"…And I might get hurt," Alison continued, ignoring the interruption. "Do you really want that on your conscience?"

Sam considered this.

"I could live with it."

He patted Alison on the shoulder patronisingly, said his goodbyes and yanked open the rusted door. A gust of icy wind blew a bitter welcome into his eyes.

"You'll regret this!" Alison yelled at him. She looked ominous.

Very cute, Sam thought.

"I'm sure I will," he agreed, and slammed the door shut.

Within minutes he found himself wishing he had brought Alison after all. He'd become lost in a labyrinth of identically gloomy passages. Grubby grey walls rose on every side and damp, dirty carpet padded under foot. Sam tried door after door, turn after turn, hole after hole. But he couldn't find a single escape to the outside world. To make things worse, he kept hearing moans and thuds which, when followed, led to trails of blood. This soon convinced Sam that there was something horrible lurking here. He didn't know what, but to defend himself he picked up every single weapon he came across.

Still the corridors went on.

As time passed and he hadn't been attacked, Sam relaxed and tried to think rationally. He now knew that he couldn't find an exit without help. The only way he could do so would be to check his GPS. Leaning against a doorframe, he fumbled in his back pocket. Sam frowned. His hand rooted about the bottom of the lining. His cell phone seemed to have slipped into some hidden crevasse in the depths of his trousers. But after urgently patting down each leg Sam knew for sure that it was gone.

Then he remembered Alison's final words and realised why. His face darkened

"That goddamned brat stole my cell!"

* * *

Alison waltzed down the third major hallway with Sam's cell pressed to her ear, blaring out one of many songs stored on its card. She had taken cruel delight in going through it, prying on everything from his missed calls to the contact list.

It served him right for leaving her alone. He should have stayed with her, like a proper gentleman. If the handsome bastard wanted his cell back he'd have to come for it.

Alison was beginning to enjoy herself when an odd screeching pealed from the other end of the corridor. It sounded like rusty metal on cement; the kind of noise that set your teeth on edge. Alison stopped in her tracks. She shut off the music and listened attentively. The sound was drawing closer, echoing eerily down the hallway. It was fouler than nails on chalkboards, sharpened knives.

It suggested a terrible, threatening danger.

Alison took an uncertain step forward, skin erupting in goose bumps.

"Um… hello? Sam? Is that you? It's me, Alison!" she called. She couldn't keep the tremor from her voice. Deep down she sensed that whoever was coming towards her wasn't her friend. That frightened her more than she wanted to admit.

In the darkness, shapes were stirring. As Alison looked on open-mouthed, a hulking figure reared out of the gloom like some hellish god. It took a slow step forward, dragging its feet. Its body seemed ill proportioned; head oddly shaped, muscular body stooped over. It was lugging something along behind it, too. But weirder than this was what it was doing. Alison retreated silently behind a derelict armchair to watch the following scene in speechless horror.

At the figure's feet lay a misshapen bundle, shaking piteously and emitting garbled sobs from its throat. The huge shape was kicking it brutally, driving its foot repeatedly into its face. Blood spurted out across the ground. The bundled creature crawled onto its hands and knees and uttered a lengthy moan. For a moment there was utter stillness. Then there came a terrible noise, like merciless metallic laughter, before the miserable beast was shunted hard across the ground.

It lay quaking where it landed. Alison could now see that it was some kind of woman. A nurse. She wore a soiled white dress with high-heeled shoes. One of heels had broken when she fell, snapping her ankle to the side. She cradled it in her hand. Her body trembled. Alison realised she was crying and felt her heart go out to her. However, the attacker was not so compassionate. It stalked across to its victim and stamped her fingers maliciously into the ground.

It had come close enough to be seen in its full glory.

And it made Alison's skin crawl.

From the neck down the beast seemed humanoid, although huge and built with solid muscles. It donned an apron made of human skin stitched haphazardly together. In one hand it held a colossal, rusted knife dripping with fresh gore. Yet the most shocking thing about this creature was its bizarre helmet. The reddish-brown metal pyramidal was nailed to its skull, forcing its neck to stoop.

From within came sounds of heavy breathing that whispered through the grating that encased it.

Alison watched wide-eyed as this monster grabbed the injured nurse by the throat and slammed her against a wall. Her legs kicked helplessly, like those of a dying spider. He arms dangled uselessly at her sides and her face, which was swaddled in bandages, twitched in pain. The pyramid-headed beast groaned. It set down its blade on the ground with a hideous clang. Alison looked at its wicked edge and shivered. She could only imagine what damage it could do.

Her attention returned to the nurse when she cried out again desperately for help. But she did so to no avail. The monster thrust one hand coarsely beneath her skirt and, with an impatient jerk of the wrist, tore it away.

"Oh lord, no," Alison said under her breath. "This can't be happening."

But it was. And God relished it.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey darlings, please review. I'd like to see how I'm doing :)**

Chapter Three

Alison knew exactly what was about to happen to the disfigured nurse and wished there was something she could do. But she knew she'd be killed if she dared try to stop the monster's cruelty. And so she was forced to witness its harrowing demise with unspoken horror.

Whilst the nurse's screams rose to an unbearable peak, the helmeted beast grabbed her waist and thrust its hips forward hard. Its victim convulsed, legs thrashing spasmodically. Pyramid Head (as Alison rapidly dubbed it) dug its fingers deep into her pale thighs to restrain her. Again and again it slammed its body into the nurse's, raping her defenceless figure with grim, sadistic brutality. It clearly took hideous satisfaction out of the pain it caused.

The grip on the nurse's throat tightened. It did so until there was a sickening crack and the nurse fell slack and still. Pyramid Head didn't seem to notice. It- no, he – continued his molestation of her unresponsive flesh with apparent rapture.

Then, just as Alison thought it could get no worse, he brought a hand to the nurse's shoulder and began stripping the skin from the bone.

Alison couldn't bear to watch any more. She crawled away on her stomach, dry-heaving into the carpet. She wanted to cry, to bury her head in another's shoulder until the memories of the brutal rape faded. But she couldn't. All she had the strength to do was drag herself far from the scene and lie prostrate, eyes squeezed shut. And although she switched Sam's music back on and muttered the lyrics repeatedly, she could not wash the fear from her mind.

She was lost in her own living nightmare.

* * *

"Alison?"

Sam cupped his hands around his mouth, called again.

"Alison! Where are you, you little brat?"

He stood in a barren yard, blinded by the fog moving ceaselessly through the chill air. Not long ago he had discovered a door leading to the outside world. At first he had rejoiced on this finding, but now he felt just as uneasy and confused as he had before. He had the strong feeling he was being watched. Eyes burned him with their mocking scrutiny, seeing yet unseen. It crossed his mind that Alison had returned to torment him. This seemed unlikely. Sam would have heard her playful laughter by now, and he hadn't. So it seemed that something more sinister was spying on him now. Even so, he hoped that it was her after all.

"Who's there?" Sam bawled, gripping an abandoned revolver tight in his fist. From a short way off there was a quiet shuffling. Sam turned and followed it with cautious curiosity. The fog was clearing now, parting to reveal what it had hidden. Before him stood a dishevelled building built of crumbling bricks, its cracked foundations streaked with mud. Sam had seen houses like this in his neighbourhood. 'Enemies' of the occupants pelted them with dirt-balls before running away stifling sniggers. He smiled in recollection. Maybe there were other people in this town after all, despite its deserted atmosphere.

As Sam entered the house, a few tattered leaves blew across the doorstep. Out of habit he dashed them away with the toe of his boot. His mother used to complain if there were plants in the house. She always said they'd be trodden into the carpet, making things untidy. Bastards to vacuum, she'd often told him. Like his father. Only he cleaned up after himself and vanished without a trace.

'So don't you let them in,' his mother said. 'And there won't be no trouble or mess to clean up.'

Well, thought Sam, peering around the inside of the building. A little extra mess in here wouldn't make much difference.

It wasn't a house after all. It was more likely a schoolroom, although it was barely recognisable as one now. Splintered desks were strewn across the floor and the walls were defiled with obscene images. The windows were boarded up from the inside, making the whole room dark and stuffy. It was fortunate Sam had picked up a small flashlight during his search for the unseen watcher or else he'd have been totally blind. There were many places here for a small person to hide, so many nooks and shelters to be crouched in. It would take literally hours to search them all.

Sam sighed heavily, one hand on his hip. The kid was stubborn, that was for sure.

Sam glowered, no longer amused. Alison was definitely the one he'd heard running in here. She must be cowering somewhere with his cell in her grubby hand, grinning her little ass off at his stupidity.

"Alison? Come on, this isn't a game. Stop being a dirty thief and hand the damned thing over. Look, I'll let you tag along. Just come out. Please."

The last word slipped unpleasantly from his tongue. It sounded as though he was begging, which he certainly wasn't. But it seemed to do the job. From the darkest corner of the room a dwarfed shape emerged. It looked like a kid, but it definitely wasn't Alison. It had a peculiar stumbling gait like a scarecrow, allowing its limbs to dangle listlessly. Sam turned the beam of his torch onto its face. He guessed from the length of its hair that it was female. It was woven into long, dirty braids that swung heavily from the figure's head as it walked.

"Hey, little girl, are you ok?" he asked in concern. The child didn't look healthy. The way it staggered awkwardly over the ground didn't seem… right. "I'm talking to you, kid, Are you sick?"

The child stopped dead a metre away, utterly motionless. It didn't even seem to be breathing.

The familiar taste of apprehension filled Sam's mouth. The way it was standing unsettled him. He willed it to talk, to act like a normal human child, but it didn't. It just remained there like a soft statue.

"That's it," Sam muttered to himself angrily. "I'm sick of this crap."

He marched across to the child and, gently but firmly, straightened its head.

He backed off immediately, gasping in repulsion.

The thing he'd touched wasn't a child at all. It was a doll. A living, dead doll hewn from cloth and human flesh sewn together with thick black thread. This disfigured the face into an ugly, misshapen lump. Its eyes were sightless buttons sewn to the head. Blood seeped from them, oozing down the bulging cheeks like twisted tears. Below, the mouth stretched in a gaping maw, a slit from which leaked entrails and soiled kapok. From these filthy jaws, Sam caught the stench of rotting flesh. His stomach lurched. Hand clamped over his mouth, he pointed his revolver at the doll's mutated head.

It made a muffled gargling sound in its throat, grinning with teeth made of needles. Then it took a juddering stride towards him on bulging legs.

"Shit," Sam cussed. He took a hasty step back towards the door. "Don't come any closer. I'll shoot you, freak!"

The doll didn't seem to hear him. It tottered even closer. Too close. Sam shot it straight through the forehead. Cotton-strewn brains splattered from the wound, hitting him square in the face. But the doll did not stop. Even when Sam fired at both its shins it refused to die.

Maybe it couldn't die.

Perhaps this was because it wasn't real. This monster- this insane, unbelievable monster- could just be a mere hallucination, a simple fancy imprinted on his retinas. It could fade away with a few fierce blinks…

Sam almost believed this wild theory. But when he passed a hand across his eyes the doll was still there. His face paled. Without wasting another moment he turned and made a break for the door. Yet as soon as he reached it, it slammed shut in his face. He hammered his fists upon it, both dismayed and enraged at the same time.

"Hey! Open this door right now!"

When he put his ear to the keyhole he could hear malevolent giggling from outside. Somebody had locked him in on purpose- most likely more of the dead dolls. This theory was correct; upon turning back to face the little monster, Sam saw three others rising from the wreckage around him. They were in various states of decay, leaking pus and stuffing from every hole.

But all of them had the same fixed expression of unholy joy.

* * *

Alison had at last reached the outside world. After recovering from her sickened shock, she had wandered through several more passages with a nail-studded plank gripped in both hands. She'd eventually discovered a gap through which was an open street wreathed in fog. Now she was immersed in it, feeling her way through like a blind girl.

"Sam?" she called desperately.

No answer.

Alison shivered. She was tired of being alone. The creepy, ghost-like ambience of the town unnerved her. If another person accompanied her, Alison was certain she wouldn't feel so anxious. But the only human she'd seen was Sam, and he was still lost in those endless corridors. Alison certainly wasn't going back for him. She couldn't face encountering Pyramid Head again.

But unless she did, Alison would never see anybody else until she left Silent Hill. It was obvious this place was unoccupied. The houses were dead, the streets neglected. Nobody had been here for years. Only Sam, herself and that monster were left alive. Alison wrapped her arms around herself. It seemed that she was trapped with her desolation, whether she liked it or not.

Yet just as she thought this, Sam's stolen cell phone began to ring in her pocket.

Three times it rang without a clause. Alison retrieved the cell from her pocket and studied it, half-afraid. Its tiny screen was illuminated with the words 'receiving call from x-Jewel-x'. Alison frowned. This was unbelievable. When she'd first taken the phone, she'd tested it for a connection. There hadn't been one- not even the faintest trace. So this call could not exist.

Alison realised she was holding her breath and released it in a short wheeze.

_Then, after a moment's dithering, she raised the phone to her ear and answered it._


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Please review. I'd love to know what you think xxx**

Chapter Four

There was a crackle on the other end of the phone line.

"Hello? Is this… Jewel?" Alison asked tentatively. She was answered with a deafening roar of static. Wincing, she moved to end the call but then words broke through the cacophony. They were fractured and confused.

"… Do… ust sssa… et awa… no more… can't… elp…"

"I don't understand," said Alison, still cringing. The voice on the line was screeching in desperation to get its message across.

"… Gret… your selfff!"

Alison shook her head. It was no use. The girl was completely incoherent.

"I'm sorry, the line's bad. You're all crackly."

"…Don't … or… own…. ALISON!"

Alison nearly leapt out of her skin with shock. The last word was screamed hysterically, raw with terror. The static had died away now. It was so quiet there wasn't so much as a click to obscure the following sinister words.

"Value your purity well, for he will take it from you."

* * *

Memories

I cradle Jewel in my lap, toying absently with her curls. She blinks lazily up at me. Her eyes have the innocence all children possess, yet this is just an illusion. I smile thinly. Jewel isn't as pure as she pretends. The things she tells me in secrecy, things whispered behind charming hands, are dirty and shameful. They're things even the coarsest child would never dare say. But I'm Jewel's closest friend- and lover, despite the eight years between us- so I'm unabashed by the filth slithering inside her. With a face as sweet as hers it doesn't matter how foul her thoughts are.

I'll marry her one day. I'll dress her in swathes of white silk and pearls. I can imagine Jewel dancing up the aisle with her gown sweeping behind her. She'll stand before me, a blush at her cheeks, taking my hands in hers. Then we'll stand side-by-side, listening as the priest drones on. Afterwards, I'll lift Jewel's veil and we'll kiss. We'll walk together across the beach where the sea whispers a gentle blessing. I will lay her there, pale and lovely upon golden sand, and make love to her.

The seabirds will call out as I move upon her, their cries lost in ours. It will be perfect. It will…

It is too much to bear. I shift Jewel from my lap. She seems surprised, lips quirking as she examines my face.

"What's up, sweetie? Am I getting too heavy?" she asks teasingly. I shake my head.

"No. I just wanna ask you something… important. Y' know how you said you'd do anything for me?"

Jewel nods. A puzzled line creases her flawless brow.

"Well, um…" I swallow, then say it in a rush. "Will-you-marry-me?"

I'd expected the reaction to be eager. But now Jewel is frowning, looking troubled. She clambers off the bed and onto her feet. Her arms fold tight across her chest. Barring me out.

"Are you crazy?" she says. "I'm only thirteen. It'd be impossible. Besides, I have my whole life ahead of me. I don't wanna be tied down, y'know? I like us the way we are; free. If I have a ring on my finger I'll feel like some middle-age woman. So, thanks but no thanks to the whole marriage thingy."

I feel as if she's slapped me.

"But Jewel," I protest. "If we're married, we won't have to do this in secret any more. People'll accept us."

Jewel laughs at me. It isn't like her usual giggle. It is a frank bark of contempt.

"Dream on, Sam. It's nevergonna happen."

"Don't be like that. It could, in some country where kids can… anyway, we could spend the rest of our lives together!"

Jewel gives me a withering look that makes my happiness dwindle away.

"Forever, you mean? I don't wanna be chained to you for eternity, Sam freaking Reeves. Like you said, I'm a kid. That's not gonna change… no matter how much you want to screw me."

Leaving the last remark cutting into my heart, she stalks from the room and slams the door violently behind her. I remain, shell-shocked, on the bed. A single bitter tear clings to my eyelashes.

It isn't the last I will shed for her.

* * *

Sam

"What do you want from me?"

Sam turned the revolver from face to face. The doll-like creatures didn't answer him. They only giggled and reached out with infant hands. They were cornering him. Once they had him backed against the wall, he would be trapped at their mercy.

Sam looked at them again.

They had no mercy.

Their starved, snapping jaws reflected their desire. They wanted to rip him apart and eat his tender flesh. Nothing more.

Sam fired at them urgently, becoming reckless. He knew he had to find their weakness soon. Bullets didn't work; the dolls simply shook them off like flies. A knife wouldn't do much damage, either. Sam wracked his brains for ideas, each time coming up with nothing. Pressured sweat dripped from his forehead. He raised his free hand to wipe at away. Suddenly, one of the dolls darted forward and latched onto his knuckle with its needle teeth. Sam howled in pain. Without thinking, he kicked it hard in the stomach and sent it sprawling into a pile of papers and splintered chair legs.

Then it hit him. Paper. Wooden chairs. Creatures made of lumps of cloth and meat.

All flammable.

Triumphantly, Sam whipped a lighter from his jacket pocket and raised it high, striking a tiny flame. The dolls reacted electrically. They stumbled over each other in their hurry to get away, releasing muffled screams through mouthfuls of bloody kapok. Sam grinned widely. He advanced on them with cruel purpose, brandishing the lighter in his hand. One of the dolls had wedged itself beneath a desk, too overstuffed to escape him. Sam yanked it out by the leg.

He grabbed the shrieking beast by the hair, digging his nails into its scalp. It wept like a baby, but this only angered Sam further. How dare it pretend to be human?

"Just die!" he snarled and thrust the lighter down its throat. The doll gagged and thrashed, gnawing on Sam's wrist in its struggle to get away. Doggedly, he held on. The fire was kindling in the doll's stomach, travelling quickly up its gullet. Sam whipped his arm away to avoid it. Flaming guts began to surge from between the dolls screaming lips. Its friends moaned in sympathy from their various hiding places. Sam raised the lighter again, and blood trickled down his outstretched forearm.

"Come out, come out," he said softly. There was a quiet rustle from a corner, nothing more. His weapon had made cowards of these creatures. Sam shrugged indifferently. There was no point hunting them all down; it would take hours to locate them in this dump.

Let them rot, he thought offhandedly. And if any of them try and follow…

He flicked the lighter again violently with his thumb.

…Well, maybe I should leave that to my imagination.

Sam examined one boarded window, planning his exit. It wouldn't take much to pull the planks away. But to get high enough, he needed elevation. After stuffing the lighter into his pocket, Sam wandered over to an upturned table and dragged it upright. His wrist twinged with pain. But Sam was determined to get out of here, even if his hand fell right off. He placed his foot firmly on the tabletop. It trembled a little yet remained stable, so he hoisted himself up top of it and scrambled onto the windowsill. Something stirred down below. This encouraged Sam to hurry his escape.

He hooked his fingers around the edges of the window-planks. They were rotten, easily removed. He prised them off and thrust his legs through the uncovered window. The outside was bitingly cold- but it offered freedom from those freakish dolls. So Sam rapidly lowered himself from the window-ledge and onto the ground. He checked himself over. All was well apart from his bleeding wrist, which he staunched with his jacket. The wound stung in protest. Without thinking, he put it into his mouth in an effort to soothe its throbbing.

From a spot to his right there came a snort of smothered laughter. When Sam looked up, he saw yet another doll-child standing there. But this one was different. It stared at him with its head inclined, gawping with real intelligence. Also, The face was less mangled than the others had been. It was almost human, aside from the dark button eyes.

The thing smiled eerily at him with stitched lips. Sam couldn't help shivering in unease.

"What the…"

The doll turned away, head angled over its shoulders. It beckoned him with one finger.

"Sssam," it gargled. As it spoke, a shower of cockroaches rained from its mouth. It raised its foot to crush their bodies under its heel, revelling in their agonised shrieks. Noticing Sam's grimace of disgust, it grinned ferociously.

"Don't kill me," it said. It paused, smirking. "I have my whole life ahead of me."

Sam's jaw dropped. He knew those words. His face paled as old memories preyed at his mind.

"Wh-what did you say?"

The doll ignored him. It preened before an imaginary mirror in a grotesque parody of a vain teenager. Its legs parted suggestively. From between its thighs came a spider, lowered itself on a silky thread where it hung tauntingly. Somehow this angered Sam.

"You ugly little runt!"

The doll pirouetted like a crooked ballerina, and then opened its mouth to utter one final poisonous sentence.

"…Not gonna change no matter how much you wanna screw me."

Sam's mind exploded. He fell to his knees, head screaming with agony, and vomited sourly into the grass. His insides were stirred into a blind panic, his thoughts in disarray. They mangled and burned in a mesh of fear and horror. He didn't understand, couldn't understand.

Had she found him? Was she here?

Sam's throat stung with bile and his eyes rolled beneath the lids.

When he dared open them again, the vicious doll had vanished.

Just as is if had never been there.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thanks for your reviews! Keep them coming, I like to know that people are reading my stories. Enjoy this next chapter x**

-

Chapter Five

**Alison**

Alison digested Jewel's hard words in speechless horror. After the initial shock of them died away, she felt both fear and rage consume her. Fear of the implications of that terrible threat, rage that Jewel dared speak it. Alison clenched her fists and gritted her teeth.

"What'd you mean?" she demanded, voice shaking. "Do you want me to get raped, or something? How d'you now my name, anyway? Are you here, in Silent Hill?"

But there was no answer, only the returning crackle of static and a soft click as the call died. Alison screamed in frustration. She snapped the phone shut so hard she stubbed a nail against it, drawing blood. Cursing, she sucked the throbbing away and tried to calm herself. Jewel (whoever she was) must simply be someone with a sick sense of humour, the kind of person who threatened others just for the hell of it. Alison knew that that type of caller wasn't worth getting upset about.

Even so, she couldn't help being unsettled by what Jewel had said. She knew too much. It seemed an odd coincidence that she had mentioned rape so soon after Alison had witnessed the brutality in those dark, lonely corridors…

Stop it, Ally. Don't think about it. Concentrate on something good, something you could never be afraid of… think of Sam.

A brief smile tugged her lips.

But as fast as came it faded again. Deep within the fog came the sound of vile retching, harsh and grossly sick. Alison's stomach squeezed. She approached the sound, keeping a firm grip on her nail-studded plank. Although the sound was reassuringly human, she did not want to take any chances. Who knew what kind of creature could be lurking here. It may seem like an ill person, but in appearance it could be as alien as Pyramid Head himself.

Fortunately, it was human after all. It did not take Alison long to realise that. Hunched beside an old schoolhouse was Sam Reeves himself, but he was in no state to welcome her. He was vomiting so hard that his spine was arched with pain. Alison was so unbelievably glad to see him that this did not repulse her as it once would. She went to him at once, casting her weapon aside. Gently, she smoothed his hair back from his sticky forehead and waited for the sickness to pass. Then she wound her arms around him and held him tight.

Sam groaned, jaws dripping, and shuddered. His face looked utterly bloodless. There was something badly wrong with him, something that her. Alison touched his clammy cheek hesitantly. She was trying to console him, but it had the complete opposite effect. Sam lashed out and shoved her away with fierce violence. Alison flew across the ground and fell flat on her back. She lay there, dazed and winded, grazed palms bleeding. Sam didn't seem to care.

"Stay away from me!" he bawled. When Alison didn't move, he fumbled in his pocket and retrieved a heavy revolver. He stumbled forward and pressed it hard between her eyes. She gawped, bewildered and suddenly afraid.

"Sam, it's me, Alison! It's ok! Look, if this is about your cell, you can have it back. I don't want it any more."

She offered it to him, hand shaking. Sam took it slowly and looked at it for a long time. Then abruptly his arms dropped to his sides. He looked appalled at himself.

"God, I'm sorry," he said. He reached out to help Alison to her feet, head bowed apologetically. "I thought you were… never mind. I'm sorry."

He seemed so sad and despondent that Alison forgave him at once. Clumsily, she pulled him into the awkward embrace stranger's shared. Sam smelled like dirt, cologne, and old blood. But he was warm and reassuring, and that was all that mattered.

Sam pulled away and stared at her, intense and unblinking through the fog. Alison felt rather uneasy under his grey-eyed gaze.

"Don't worry. I'm not hurt," she said, feigning cheeriness. "I'm invincible. But anyway, I didn't know you were sick. I wouldn't have taken your cell if I did."

Sam shrugged this away curtly.

"It doesn't matter, just as long as you haven't messed it up," he replied. Then he added, "Did you find your ghosts?"

Alison considered this. If the monstrous Pyramid Head and a creepy phone call counted as paranormal experiences then she had indeed. But rather than saying so, she mirrored Sam's elusiveness and shrugged mysteriously.

"Maybe. Have a guess," she said, laughing at him. "It doesn't matter anyway. I don't want see any more weird things."

"Me neither!"

"Hmm. That sounded pretty heart-felt," she told him. "What'd ya see that's riled you so badly, huh?"

"Nothing!" Sam said quickly. "Really, Alison, just leave it."

Sam's tone was so cutting that she obeyed. Losing interest in the conversation, she hummed softly under her breath. Sam turned away and sighed to himself. His breath was foul and rank, like old leaves.

Yet somehow it was also terribly sad.

Something about Sam depressed her. He was so bleak and desolate, as if he had no hope left inside him. It hurt her to imagine what was going through his mind.

She took his hand and squeezed it hard.

"Hey," she murmured. "We should get out of here and find someplace to eat."

"You're hungry?" Sam was incredulous. "Well, I guess we need to get out of here anyway. This town's weird. Something's wrong with it. Besides, your Mom must be missing you…"

Alison snorted.

"My mom doesn't give a damn about me. She's a loose lady with few morals; kids like me don't even exist to her. I'm just a nuisance."

She wished immediately that she hadn't opened her mouth. Sam's expression was clouded with paternal concern.

"What about your Dad?" he enquired.

"Never met the guy. One of mom's former clients, I guess. Probably a regular to her club. But then, what would a sweet little girl like me know about that?"

Alison inspected her nails casually and changed the subject.

"So now you've got your cell back, you can use your GTS thingamabob to get us out of here, right?"

"Uh… yeah, sure."

Alison watched Sam fiddle around with his phone. He slapped it several times before glaring at her irately.

"You've done something, you idiot! It's broken."

"What're you talking about? I didn't touch the GPS," Alison snapped, secretly hurt by his accusation. She craned her neck to peer at the screen but Sam whisked it out of reach.

"You're not getting your hands on it again," he said firmly. "All that's showing up is random dots. It's completely screwed! God, even the keypad's not working…"

Sam jabbed his thumb at one button with an angry jerk. Immediately the familiar roar of static crackled from its speakers, but it was accompanied by something much worse. It was drown-out, high-pitched screech. It drilled right into Alison's brain. She gasped, grey-faced with a dreadful realisation. She knew what it was.

It was the sound of Pyramid Head's rusted blade.

Alison cried out, clutching her head in both hands. Pain was splitting her skull apart, forcing stars across her vision. She could see nothing, hear nothing. Nothing but that horrendous metallic squeal. It filled her brain, deafened her, drowning her with terror. She stumbled against a wall and began to cry wretchedly. She didn't what else to do. Through the blur of tears and pain she saw Sam's face contort in alarm. He pressed a cool hand to her shoulder, shaking her. At any other time Alison would have enjoyed his touch... but now she couldn't bear it.

Fractured memories crowded her mind. She saw Pyramid Head's fingers slide across the nurse's shoulder, stripping her skin brutally the bone. Sam's own hand simulated this action. His nails scratched harmlessly at the collar of her shirt, but amidst the confusion Alison thought her flesh was peeling away. Panicking, she flailed against Sam's chest. Her migraine worsened with each strike. As the pressure increased, a trickle of blood dribbled from her nose and down her upper-lip.

"What's wrong, Alison? What's hurting you?" Sam cried. His bewildered tone cut through everything else like a blade of mercy, clearing a brief path of sanity. Alison clutched her temples and moaned. Sweat was condensing on her brow.

"That monster…" she croaked. She slumped against the wall, legs giving way. "Don't let him hurt me…"

"Alison, I-"

"He's…God..."

And as she toppled into Sam's open arms the darkness rushed forward to claim her.

* * *

Blood flowed across the floor of a neglected hotel. In the very centre lay the body of a young woman. She sprawled on her back, clawing at thin air. Her head hung back; neck clearly broken. Yet shockingly, unbelievably, she lived.

Perhaps it would have been better if she were not.

The dreaded sound of scraping metal flooded the corridor. Upon hearing it the woman fell still as if dead. However, the Red God saw past her act and edged, slow but inescapable, towards her. His victim bucked and failed in a feeble effort to escape. Like all other, she failed.

The beast caught her by the hair and slammed her back against the floor.

She should have never tried to fool him, never tried to slip away. In this world there was only death and punishment. Life and mercy were forgotten words, buried beneath endless sin. She, as a slave to this ghostly town, should accept her damnation. But she was just another foolish child whose only will was to seek freedom.

She could not be.

The woman saw the Great Knife descend above her. She screamed in wordless distress. Then it fell, and she broke off into gargled moans of choked despair as blood gushed into her throat. The Red God tilted his head. His hands were stained a rusty scarlet, wet, sticky, sweet.

He lifted them to the edge of his helmet and allowed the thick black muscle of his tongue to taste the precious death. Not a scrap of this creature could be wasted. Soon, he would rut this wasteful corpse and let the town devour her.

A grating moan slipped from him. Bereavement was a paradise to him, a reward for his own bestial ways.

He had brought death. Dealt the deceased.

Suffered ecstasy.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Here it is, Chapter 6! Read and review people, I'd love to know how I'm doing. I hope you enjoy it x**

Chapter 6

Sam didn't know what to do. Alison lay in his arms, stiff-limbed and pale. She wasn't dead; her breath was warm on his cheek. But she was heavily unconscious and growing colder by the second. Sam dithered, watching in panic as blood streamed from her nose. He knew he had to do get her inside quickly- he'd seen enough people comatose to know that. However, without a map or GPS as guidance Sam had no means of finding safety.

"Damn it, kid, why'd you have to collapse now?" he moaned, shifting her weight slightly. In doing so he dislodged one shoe from her foot and sent it bouncing across the ground. Sam bent to retrieve it and stopped mid-stoop. There was a faint rumble of thunder, but also-

-There were footsteps coming towards him.

Sam fumbled for the gun, eyes widening. His mind flickered from the mangled doll children to Alison's words. 'That monster', she'd said. 'Don't let him hurt me'.

She _had_ seen her ghosts, after all.

Icy precipitation began to fall, whipping up the fog into his eyes. Sam was blinded by it. He could barely see his own hands. But he could hear everything. Each gust of wind, each rustle of clothing. Loudest of all he could hear those thudding footfalls advancing, scraping their heels on the sodden ground. Sam squinted hard into the murky air. His keen eyes sought the oncoming life form ceaselessly, flicking to and fro until something appeared through the mist and drizzle.

From across the street came a malformed figure, lurching unsteadily on thick legs. Sam retreated hastily. He clutched Alison tighter to his chest and raised the revolver. The figure gurgled hollowly in its throat. It tottered closer- too close for Sam's liking. He began to side step past it. He prayed it wouldn't see him. But it turned and followed him with its eerie drunken gait, arms outstretched mummy-like before it.

That thing might've been human once. A long, long time ago.

Sam tried not to look at the creature. Going by his last experience with the unnatural, he wouldn't react well to anything else extraordinary. However, he couldn't help but stare at this staggering freak with awed repulsion.

At first glance, the thing looked like a man carrying a child. But this was not the case.

It was a grey-skinned monstrosity, with bones protruding through flesh half-hanging from its face. It was made up of two separate figures welded together; the smaller conjoined to the other's chest like a Siamese twin. Occasionally this strange addition reared back from the other, wriggling and mewling. Sam thought it looked like a bald monkey. However, when it twisted its head round to peer blindly at him he changed his mind.

It was like some unsightly infant. It had the face of a child burnt in a terrible fire. Melted, mottled meat sagged over its eyes and nose in wax-like lumps. Only its mouth was free from this membrane. It snapped and salivated like a starved dog's.

The 'father' part of the creature was vaguely human-shaped but wider, bloated, like a drowned corpse. Its swollen head was featureless save for two vacant eyes. The body was grotesquely lopsided with unpeeled, stinking muscles. Yet the most frightful factor was the creature's arms. Each limb was sawn off roughly near the elbow, leaving a circle of raw meat exposed.

And protruding from these mutilated ends were lethal spears of sharpened bone.

Sam swallowed hard. He could almost feel those wicked things piercing his heart in one brutal stab. The thought chilled his blood. The revolver loosened in his hand; his palm was sweating. Sam clenched his grip on the gun so hard his knuckles cracked, but it still didn't feel enough. He was so afraid, so unnerved, that every twitch of his fingers made him think the gun was falling from his grasp.

But it didn't. Instead it fired, over and over, bullets spraying from the muzzle in a deadly torrent. They tore through the monster's shoulder each time, splattering gobbets of meat everywhere. The creature shuddered painfully. Its tumour-child shrieked, wrenching at its 'father's chest so hard it nearly ripped itself apart. Sam rapidly backed off. In doing so, he slipped in a puddle and sprawled headlong across the ground. He pushed Alison away so that he didn't crush her. Unfortunately, whilst falling her head collided heavily with tarmac. Before Sam could aid her, the creature pitched forwards and caressed Alison's scalp with one jagged bone, cooing a mockery of paternal love.

Sam's scowled. Without thinking, he snatched up a knife from his belt and slammed it hard into the monster's thigh.

"Leave her alone!" he roared. The tumour-child screeched in rage but he ignored it. He just carried on slicing furiously at the creature's rotting leg. "She's just a kid, you mutated little…"

His words were drowned out by the monster's howls of frustration. It swiped at him angrily and managed to stab him hard in the shoulder. Bone ground against bone, skin tore. Sam let loose a stream of curses and rolled over, tearing away. He clamped a hand over his wound then stared up through the smog. The creature swayed above him. It gawped down blankly into his face, watching him. Sam slashed at it with the knife again. He caught the tumour-child this time. The jaws flopped in shock and snapped together furiously. But before it had a chance to bite him, Sam had scrambled to his feet and moved away.

Alison was lying prostrate nearby, head surrounded by a halo of crimson. Only the twitching of her limbs revealed the fact she was alive.

_I've gotta get that kid out of here._

Sam crouched beside her, wincing as his shoulder throbbed, and gathered her up into his arms. The monster snarled from his left. It looked in bad shape, but that didn't stop it wheeling at him out of the fog. Sam tried to dodge, didn't succeed. The creature collided with him face on, throwing its clammy arms round his neck in a crushing embrace. Sam thrashed hastily in its grip, feeling his windpipe begin to close up alarmingly fast. He managed to lodge his blade into the monster's ribcage. This loosened its grip somewhat. Sam took speedy advantage of this. He swallowed back lung-fulls of air before trying to shove the creature away. The touch of its skin was repulsive. Regardless, Sam pushed against it as hard as he could.

The creature didn't budge an inch. It just arched its back unpleasantly, faces contorted, and snapped its arms together again. They tightened around Sam's throat like a gruesome vice, squeezing his neck so hard that he could neither move nor breathe.

Sam felt his body cease up. The monster shook him violently from side to side, clinching his throat ever-harder. Sam became still as possible. He'd realised that if he thrashed or cried out, the air left in his lungs would be lost… closely followed by his life. So he stopped struggling and stared into the depths of the monster's lifeless eyes. They looked at back him emptily. They were devoid of pity or humanity. All they held were fleeting traces of hunger.

Sam closed his own eyes in resignation. If this lump of greyed flesh had ever been human, none of its former compassion was left.

It was going to kill him.

Kill him, and let its childlike tumour devour his cold, dead, corpse.

Sam could already hear those wicked little jaws snap at him blindly yet accurately. Its parent obligingly pressed one bone spear against Sam's throat. He bowed his head as the last breath died in his lungs. For a long, dismal moment there was a miserable tranquillity in the mist-swept street.

_This is it_, he thought bleakly.

Then he ripped the knife from the creature's ribs and cracked down on its forearm.

There was a grisly crunch as the whole limb was torn away in a fountain of black liquid. The tumour-baby screamed on its parent's behalf, clinging on tight as it jolted spasmodically. Sam hacked at the remaining arm without mercy, blanking the monsters thrashing efforts to escape him. Greyed blood sprayed onto his face, burning the skin, but he resolutely continued to slash at its flesh. He could taste filth on his tongue- faeces, rusted metal, putrid meat. His stomach turned again.

Gagging constantly, Sam managed to saw through the entire arm. He twisted it back and tore it away. The monster lowed in agony, swaying unsteadily. The loss of blood had weakened it. Soon, the 'father' part's head had flopped and seemed to die. Sam prodded it. The thing was truly deceased. But the creature's body remained standing. He waited for it to keel over. It didn't.

Sam started to wonder if perhaps this was normal for such a thing. Maybe when it died, it somehow stayed upright despite being absent of life.

However, in the corner of his eye he spotted a movement from the beast's abdomen. The tumour-child was still animated, slyly shifting forwards from its parent's corpse with short snaps of its teeth. Sam shivered a little. He sensed that whatever it was doing was twisted, wrong, unpleasant to behold.

Yet with a curious tilt of the head he looked down at its cunning work.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Sorry for the wait guys, I've been revising and eventually taking my GSCE Science ecam. Total nightmare. So here's Chapter 7. Please Read and Review x**

Chapter 7

_Sam had just seen a movement from the creature's parasitic child. It was shifting forwards, just out of his line of vision. Intrigued, he angled his head to see what it was doing._

And then he let out a strangled cry of blatant disgust.

The tumour-child's mouth was nipping slyly at the breast of Alison's shirt. Its fleshy tongue lapped insistently at the material, teeth gnawing in an effort to reach what lay beneath. Sam gasped in disgust. He wrapped a hand around the creature's throat and twisted. It howled in protest. Again he wrenched with determined brutality.

Bones snapped. Tendons tore. Veins burst.

There was a shrill scream and a dull crunch as the beast died. After several convulsions, it flopped back against its parent's chest, motionless. Sam watched the creature's entire body crumple in satisfaction. With both the parent and child dead, there was nothing to keep it standing. Its distorted limbs gave way beneath it and it toppled to the ground, vacant eyes staring sightlessly upwards.

Sam kicked the vile corpse away and wiped his face.

"Thank god," he muttered, gingerly touching his injured shoulder. "It's over."

He looked down at Alison and checked her breathing. It was slow, unsteady. She was clearly sick. Nevertheless, she'd pull through if they managed to find a warm, secure place to stay for the night.

_If._

The sky was darkening and the air was bitterly cold. If the pair of them stayed outside for much longer, one or both would die. Sam could easily imagine freezing to death on this fractured road. The idea wasn't very appealing. But there didn't seem to be anywhere safe in Silent Hill…

And leaving would be suicide.

Sam resolved that he'd just have to try his luck at each building he passed until he found somewhere to stay. So with Alison hampering every step, he began to walk down the barren streets in weak hope. He could see the walls of blackened houses on either side. Their doorways were daubed with crosses of loud scarlet paint.

Keep out, the paint seemed to say. Don't cross this threshold.

Soon, the last of the optimism left over from the creature-encounter evaporated. Sam became desperately worried. They'd been out in this bitter weather too long already. Alison's condition was worsening. Sam swallowed. Something about her stillness and vulnerability unearthed long-suppressed memories. Memories that hurt.

_Stop it, Sam. Don't think about it. Just focus on finding a safe-house._

Once more he scanned the area. The rain worsened to such an extent he could barely open his eyes. Yet, even when squinting, Sam could see that something was stirring from within the swirls of choking fog.

Several somethings, drunken and lumpy, each hewn from two figures welded together.

They were watching him with empty, accusing eyes.

* * *

Al Corrigan glanced up from the mildewed guest-book for the first time in days. He looked about gloomily, polishing his glasses on his sleeve. The room was cool and dismal, with beige wallpaper peeling listlessly from the walls. It was no wonder nobody came here anymore. It was the least welcoming hotel Corrigan had ever seen. But it was his duty to wait patiently for the next customer to come in search of a warm bed.

Warm…

Corrigan snorted quietly. At least the quilts were dry, unlike the rest of this sorry place. Both the ceiling and the cracked linoleum were stained with damp. Even his clothes had taken on a distinctly soggy feel.

Well, being here was better than being outside, damp or no. Corrigan stared out through the smeary windows with little enthusiasm. He'd seen it all before, day after day, night after night. Sometimes he'd have lustful thoughts, scrabbling at his trousers for a moment's frenzied pleasure. But aside from that, each hour spent gawping at the barren streets was exactly the same. However, as he now peered indolently through the grimy glass, he'd seen something interesting.

Visitors.

This time they were real.

Struggling through the rain with a look of raw desperation was a young man with a girl in his arms. Corrigan raised a quizzical eyebrow. Both of them were pale as gutted fish and unbelievably filthy. But whereas the female's eyes were tightly shut, her friend's were wide and clouded with terror. His shoulder was bloody; the naked flesh discoloured and inflamed. He'd clearly been through hell. Yet still he clasped the girl tightly with grim tenacity.

Corrigan studied the young man's face carefully. Somebody with similar looks had come here once, long ago. He, like this kid, had a certain madness in his eyes. Also like him, he'd had a pretty woman…

Corrigan chuckled sardonically as he focused on the girl. Although slackened with unconsciousness, her face was somewhat remarkable. It wasn't at all beautiful. Rather, it looks made Corrigan slightly mistrustful. His scrutiny travelled down her body. She was wearing a dress so short it barely existed. Due to this, Corrigan couldn't help but draw a harsh conclusion about her character.

He had encountered many such women. They were cruel yet seductive creatures. Many a time Corrigan had been tempted from his seat by a sensuous smile or warm breath against his neck. On each occasion he'd curse them as he came, swearing never to accompany again. But he always did. He was weak, and for that reason he despised young girls.

However, he couldn't turn this one away. She one of the only customers he'd had in weeks. Besides, soon she would be gone, hunted down by the fiend. He would sense her. Crave her. Take her.

Just like they always did.

So with no further concerns, Corrigan sauntered away to unbolt the door. He opened his mouth with intentions of greeting them. These salutations caught in his throat as he saw his visitors were being circled by several, hunched shapes- Caressers. They didn't concern Corrigan as they always avoided him, but the young man was terrified. He was recklessly jabbing at them with a stunted blade, sweating profusely.

Corrigan smiled. Then he stepped, calm as you please, out onto the sidewalk.

And waited.

Waited like he always did.

It wasn't long before the Caressers noticed him. They retreated, leaving the young man alone in the road. Corrigan loudly cleared his throat. He felt amused as the kid jumped, looking thoroughly startled. Upon spotting Corrigan he visibly relaxed. His mouth opened to hail him. Corrigan smoothly interrupted with a vaguely welcoming gesture of the hand.

"Welcome. Please come in and sign the guest book."

With that he turned and ambled back inside with the young man trailing uncertainly in his wake.

* * *

Sam didn't know what to think. One minute he had been fighting desperately for his life, the next he was free and those monsters had skittered away like frightened rats. And all because of one man. At first, Sam wasn't sure whether to follow him or run away, but then he remembered his concerns and made up his mind. With heavy reluctance Sam followed his saviour within the building into which he'd retread.

Before entering, he glanced up at a rusted sign creaking to and fro above the doorway. The writing on it was so weatherworn it was almost indecipherable. Only one word escaped un-mangled- hotel.

Warmth. Shelter. Refuge.

Sam rushed inside gratefully, slamming the door behind him with a loud bang. His saviour looked up from a cracked desk with a disapproving frown. Then the forehead smoothed back out into a passive line again and Sam noted with annoyance that the man was somewhat good-looking.

"How long will you be staying?" the man asked, sounding rather bored. Sam blinked stupidly. Then he coughed and answered in a stalling, cautious tone.

"Uh, I don't know. One night? I wanna get out of this town as soon as possible."

The man nodded thoughtfully. Sam noticed a sign stitched to his shirt reading 'Alan Corrigan- Hotel Manager, clerk and concierge'. He cleared his throat.

"You're all three of those things, huh?"

Corrigan half-shrugged, eyes glued to a soggy book pinned beneath one hand.

"I'm afraid we have a certain lack of staff at the moment, sir. Now, if you don't mind, I'll need to take your names down."

Sam was momentarily nonplussed. "Names?"

"Ofcourse." Corrigan inspected him coolly through smeared lenses. "I keep record of those who stay here, so that they don't slip away unforgotten. Nobody in Silent Hill is ever forgotten, sir. You can be sure of that. I write down the names of everyone who enters this hotel- and even the ones that don't."

"Oh…" Sam shifted uncomfortably, feeling slightly unnerved. "Well then, I'm Sam Reeves, and this-" He patted Alison's limp arm "-is…uh…"

He found he couldn't remember her surname and grimaced apologetically. Corrigan laughed at him, the soft sound echoing eerily around the shadow-strewn lounge.

"I take it that she isn't your sister, then," he said. There was a pause as the air grew icy with tension. "Then, perhaps, she's your cousin. No? A friend? Or maybe even a lover."

"She's a stranger," Sam snapped, bristling defensively. "I woke up here this morning with her staring down at me. Since she's just a kid, I thought I'd better take care of her. Not that it's any of your business, Al."

Corrigan dismissed his anger with a disinterested wave. He then turned back to his precious guest-book. Sam watched in growing dislike as he scrawled deftly on one page, looping his letters with idle extravagance. The pen paused at the end of Alison's name. It tapped the page impatiently.

Sam wracked his brains again and again for that single word, frantic in his exasperation. The rapping of the pen distracted him, but Sam still doggedly searched his memories. He remembered her pride, her little grin, her lips forming words…

Suddenly he snapped his fingers as his brain finally rewarded him.

"Damn! She didn't give me her surname. Just mark her down as Alison Reeves."

Sam waited, expecting a condescending remark from the man at the desk. But Corrigan only gazed at him in silent, suspicious scrutiny.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Sorry this took so long. One thing led to another and I guess I've just got nothing done. But here it is. Please Read and Review x**

* * *

Chapter 8

"Alison Reeves? I see, sir," Corrigan said. His lips tightened. "But- out of interest -do you know what the name 'Alison' entails?"

"No, I don't believe I do," said Sam. He was starting to feel uneasy. Corrigan's gaze had become fanatical, haunted by something beyond Sam's understanding. "Is it important? If it is, I guess I'm sorry for not being, uh, more knowledgeable."

"Perhaps it is," Corrigan replied. He seemed somehow irritated by Sam's response. "Alison is a name meaning 'truth'. Ironic, considering that we are here, in Silent Hill."

"I don't understand."

"No. Ofcourse you don't."

Corrigan relaxed, eyes fixed on Alison. Sam didn't like the hungry contempt in his expression.

"How could do possibly know the meaning of this place?" he continued. "You've only been here one day."

Sam stared.

"How do you know? Were you the one who brought me here?" He found he was shaking. "I got hit by a truck in New York, knocked clean out. Next thing I know I'm in this crazy, godforsaken town. Did you bring me here, Corrigan? Answer me!"

"I did nothing of the kind, sir," Corrigan murmured. "I haven't left my post at this hotel for weeks. Try to be rational. Perhaps you weren't in New York after all, but somewhere nearby. You were injured. You could have crawled here from the crash and…"

Sam slammed a fist on the desk.

"Don't lie to me! It was you who dragged me to this freak show! Admit it!"

Corrigan eyed him levelly, chuckling under his breath. Then there was a resounding click and Sam glanced down to see that Corrigan was quite casually aiming a shotgun between his legs. His finger hovered teasingly on the trigger.

"I don't know how you arrived here," said Corrigan. "I only know that you haven't been around long because you were foolish enough to allow a complete stranger to accompany you. Soon you will learn mistrust, as we all do."

Sam began to back away.

The guy's nuts, he thought. I'm getting out of here.

"Don't leave yet," Corrigan said sharply. He smiled, putting his weapon away.

"I keep this simply to discourage the approach of… wild life," he explained. "I had no intentions of using it."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"Now, I assume you'd like a room with a double bed. The closest is through that door and up the stairs. Make yourself comfortable."

Sam approached him again warily. A tarnished key was pushed across the desk towards him. Sam snatched it up before glancing back at Corrigan one last time. He was reclining in his seat with the elegance of a royal.

"I… um… see you tomorrow," Sam mumbled awkwardly. He sidestepped out of the room with the man's eyes still boring into him. When he reached the staircase mentioned, he exhaled tensely and rubbed his forehead. Corrigan worried him more than he liked to admit. The man seemed a trifle insane in some strange, calculating way. He would have to be careful of him. Very careful.

However, as Sam moved further away from the elusive presence in the lounge he soon forgot about him. Exhaustion and pain began to play on his senses. His vision swam, causing him to sway drunkenly on his feet. He braced himself against the wall and groaned. Once the world settled down again, Sam forced himself to move onwards. He thought of his bed, and warmth, and this thought kept him going.

Clumsily, Sam ascended the stone staircase. He paused on the top landing; gaze raking the corridor nervously. He'd expected to see more foul monsters, but there was nothing but peeling wallpaper and a solitary naked bulb. It didn't take long for him to find his room. Like his key it had the number 13 carved into its surface.

The next few minutes became a vague blur. The key jammed in the lock, hinges creaking in protest as the door was slammed open. Feet stumbled blindly through the gloom. Sam's free hand grasped and fumbled blindly through the air. It found something soft, yielding- a bed. He kicked his shoes and jacket onto the floor before collapsing upon the mattress, allowing Alison to roll out from beneath him. Both of them were soaked with blood, but they were also exhausted.

That was all that mattered.

In moments, Sam was dead to the world.

* * *

Alison stirred, toes curling inside her stockings. She felt as if she'd slept for a month, or at least a week. One dark eye flickered blearily open. A hank of grimy blonde hair was dangling directly in front of it. Alison felt mildly puzzled. She reached up to touch it and felt her fingers connect with a cool cheek instead. She froze. Somebody's head was pressed to her neck, breath warm against her collarbone. For a second or too, her mind screamed with panic. Then she realised who it was and giggled in relief.

It was just Sam. He wouldn't hurt her. He'd caught her as she fainted, hadn't he? He must have carried her out of Silent Hill to a hotel someplace, ready to escort her home in the morning.

Alison sighed. She was never going back to that hellhole, not if the Devil himself tried to drag her there.

Alison squirmed. She felt badly in need of a shower. Her clothing slid unpleasantly across her dirt-slicked limbs, clinging to the most uncomfortable of places. She tried to get up, but Sam grabbed her and moaned into her shoulder. Alison smiled. Gently, she unwound his arms from around her back and wriggled away. Sam was just as filthy as her, if not more so. His face was simply caked with grime. Alison rubbed some away with her thumb, leaving a pale streak behind.

"Alishhhonn," Sam mumbled, only half-awake. He groped the bed-sheets feebly.

"Shh," said Alison. "I'll be gone for just a few minutes. I'm gonna get a shower, ok? I promise I'll be back. Oh…" She dropped a light kiss on his cheek "And thanks for helping me, Sam."

With that, she slipped from the bed and padded away. A faint trickle of sunlight streamed through the window. Alison guessed it was around six AM. She tiptoed across the floor so as not to disturb Sam, keeping it up until she reached the bathroom. Quietly, she reached forward to open the door. She stopped instantly. Her mouth twisted in disgust.

The shower-stall was literally heaving with insects. Cockroaches crawled from the showerhead and worms, fat as snakes, writhed in the plughole.

"Hotel standards sure are going down," Alison muttered in revulsion. She reached towards the temperature knob, grimacing sourly.

Pipes gurgled. From deep within the plumbing she could hear the creak of expanding metal. She thought nothing of it and continued turning the knob.

Then, with an ear-splitting screech, a jet of blood shot from the showerhead and hit the bottom of the stall. Bugs sprayed everywhere. Alison could barely see through the clouds of mini-beasts fluttering in her face. They butted against her lips, trying to force their way inside. Whilst she was still frozen with shock, an earwig scuttled across her foot and inched rapidly up her leg. More followed. They slid down her neck whilst clicking their mandibles together in a gruesome chorus. With a wild shriek Alison fled the room, dragging her fingernails through her hair in a panic.

Get them off get them off get them off get them off GET THEM THE HELL OFF ME!

She dashed past the bed and headed straight for the door. She wrenched it open, stamping and screeching all the way. Still covered in vermin, she cannoned out into the corridor. Her guts tightened as nausea consumed them. Every inch of her skin was crawling. She wanted to scrub herself raw, but instead of going off in search of another shower she stopped and looked around. The hotel seemed very familiar. The walls, the floor, the crumbled ceiling, all mouldy and neglected yet fresh in her mind.

But how could that be?

Oh.

Her heart sank.

Only one town in the world would let people stay in a place like this. Alison hoped to God she was wrong but, deep down, she where she was. She detested it. Hated it. hated Sam for bringing her here. But before she got upset, she had to be sure she was right.

So Alison raised her foot above a cockroach and stamped hard. The bug shrieked, struggling beneath her sole in convulsions of death. Alison's flesh itched unpleasantly as several beast skittered down her spine. They gathered around the insect's corpse, inspecting it. Then they fell upon it hungrily, tearing its tiny body apart apart. Alison quickly retreated.

Insects of all kinds were dislodging themselves from her body to feast on the dead. They turned upon each other, squeaking and squabbling in an almost demonic frenzy. Alison had never seen anything like it before- except in one place.

Silent Hill.

He didn't take me away, she thought. I asked him to save me, but he didn't. He stayed here in this evil town even though he knows it's dangerous. I know that he came here for a reason. So he stayed, and dragged me down with him.

Alison stepped over the writhing insects and approached the hotel-room. The key was still hanging from the lock.

You want to stay here so much? Fine. I'll make sure that you do.

Then she locked Sam into the room and turned away, burying the key in the depths of her pocket.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: It's been a while since I updated! So here we are, the newest chapter. Please Read and Review! x**

* * *

Chapter Nine

Alison was exploring again. She had always been adventurous, but now she was driven more by anger than interest in the hotel. Her eyes flickered from wall-to-wall, drinking everything in with innocent anxiety. She was sure that she could hear tortured moans coming from inside the locked rooms, but when she approached the sounds dwindled away.

_This is so creepy,_ she thought, _stepping over an abandoned TV. Sam's crazy not to have taken us away from here. There's probably all kinds of horrible things around. And I bet that Pyramid Head thing's still around somewhere, too…_

The image of that appalling creature was still fresh in her mind. At one point, as she had bent down to retrieve a rusted blade, she heard the ominous screech of his blade behind her. But when she turned around there was nothing to be seen.

_I'm hallucinating,_ she told herself. _I need a good long shower and some decent food._

Alison rattled the nearest door handle only to find it firmly jammed.

_If I can find someplace open, that is..._

She darted down the corridor, continuing the search. Above her head the light bulbs flickered constantly. They sent her silhouette spiralling across the walls in a wild pirouette. Alison saw it and smiled. She danced jokingly to and fro. In response, her shadow whirled like a music box ballerina.

Alison laughed in delight. She pushed her fears aside and capered down the hallway. Her dancing grew faster, fiercer, reverting into nothing more than a thrashing circle. Alison's head throbbed as the hallway began to hurtle around her. She ground to a halt and gasped with dizziness. Her guts churned. As her legs buckled beneath her, she cracked her shin on a broken pipe and sprawled upon the carpet. Blood trickled from her scuffed limb, the fresh scrape stinging sharply.

She wasn't laughing anymore.

Alison got up and dusted herself off. Her legs were shaking like jello but somehow she managed to stagger across the corridor and brace herself against the nearest doorway. The next thing she knew, the cracked wood had given way and she was falling through into the room beyond. She crashed into something heavy and steadied herself upon it. Her eyes blinked, focused on the world around her. Then they widened in surprised. This place was alien, unbelievable.

For unlike the rest of Silent Hill, this room looked lived in. It appeared as if somebody had recently left, for the bedclothes were newly rumpled and the television was mumbling away in the corner. Crumpled clothes, still warm, lay abandoned on the floor. There was a line of coloured bottles atop a wardrobe and a stuffed rabbit languishing on the bed. Alison moved towards it and sniffed. She could smell the faint odour of perfume and sweat, mixed with something else.

Something hot, musky.

Alison knew it well. She'd smelled it on her mother when she arrived home every morning. She'd smelled it on the bodies of various 'uncles' that came and went regularly. And once, when she'd a nightmare about being smothered with a pillow, Alison had crept into her mother's bed and caught the sharp scent of it from the pair embracing beside her.

**Sex.** She hated the word. It had ruined her mother and split their family apart.

Alison stalked moodily across to the window, which was masked by a heavy curtain. She meant to open it to freshen the foul air, but before she could she spied by yet another door. But this one was flung wide open. Within was a bathroom, a tidy hotel affair complete with a towel rack and a shower stall covered by a stark white curtain. In a town like Silent Hill, such normality was shocking. Surely it was a trick of the light. Nowhere in this neglected town could there be such cleanliness. Alison touched the walls. They were dry and cool, real as her very own hands.

Satisfied, Alison relaxed and began to unbutton her pinafore. She decided to shower, to take the edge of the grime and discomfort. Her clothes sailed across the creamy tiles, one stocking and her underwear collecting neatly together in the basin. Alison stood, awkward and naked, in the centre of the room. She could see herself in the full-length mirror, long nosed and skinny like a starved vixen. She was not happy with the way she looked, apart from her eyes. They were dark, slanted, glittering like chips of brown glass. If only the rest of her was as pretty.

Alison turned away from her reflection before stepping gratefully into the shower stall. Hot water cascaded around her, washing the days of dirt away in a tumbling, scalding mass. The heat of it was welcome, as was the deafening roar it created. It drowned out all thoughts, all fears. And it was wonderfully pleasant. Alison tilted her head back and crooned in rapture, arched herself back towards the steaming water. The blissful sensation grew. She felt herself drifting on her feet.

Her breath fluttered softly, slowing down.

Her limbs slackened. Filthy water swirled down the plughole with a gentle swish that somehow soothed her.

Her eyes closed-

-And suddenly an agonised howl roared into her head, rising to a peak so tortured she could hardly bear it.

"ALLY! Alison, honey, please help me!"

Alison froze. The feelings of bliss tricked away to leave cold, bitter misery in its place.

It was all so painfully familiar.

"Mom?" she called shakily, fingers crossed in hope she was wrong. "Is that… you?"

"Ofcourse, it's me, idiot! Don't you know your own mother's voice?"

The words broke off into gasps of pain.

"Please, Alison, just come here. Oh God it hurts!"

* * *

_I'm dreaming. Everything's a bizarre mixture of distressing memories and gross images. I see myself sitting on my own bed, head in my hands. Around me, the walls drip blood and cobwebs. Upon removing my hands from my face and could see blood on them too. Red on white, white on red. For once, something in my dreams has colour. A horrible one, at that. I rush forward to clean it from my doppelganger's skin. But instead I find myself staring at the cell phone he's pulling from his pocket and move no further._

_My clone rapidly dials a number into his phone and screams into it. His eyes are bloodshot. Sweat beads his brow._

_"Jewel, stop this. You've gotta come home," he rasps. "Your Mom misses you, and I do too. More than anything. I need you. You're the most important thing in my life. You know that."_

_There is a pause. I see a distorted picture flash momentarily on my vision. It shows me, holding grimly onto a mutilated doll._

_"I know that you don't want to marry me," my clone continues, choking on his words. "But that doesn't matter. Forget it. We'll be like we were before: free. Like you said. Wouldn't you like that, Jewel?"_

_Another pause. My clone scrubs his eyes fiercely. His mouth twists as he listens to the high-pitched voice on the other end of the line._

_"Whadda ya mean, you don't want me anymore? We've only just started out! You said… Huh? I DO care about you- and not just because you're pretty. Though you are. I've told you a hundred times. Don't you get how much I need you, Jewel?"_

_The vision of the room is replaced by Jewel's eyes, icy blue and tear-filled. Below them, chapped lips form words whose bitterness burned my heart._

_"Oh, I know," she snarls. "You only want me to fill your own sick needs."_

_Another voice mingles with hers- my mother's. She sounds amused, worldly-wise, murmuring almost sensually into my ear. Her slim figure reflects in Jewel's pupils._

_"Oh honey, you work so hard at that office. You never seem to have time for anything else except baby-sitting the kid next door. You must be tense, lonely. How's about I fix you up with somebody? I know a lotta nice girls who'll give you a good discount 'cause you're my son. You could really do with one, honey. No need to feel guilty about it- you don't wanna turn out like your daddy, do ya? Just ask and I'll get it all sorted. It's no problem. I understand, baby. Men have needs."_

_"**Sick** needs," Jewel echoes. Her lips draw back, and through them I see myself babbling desperately with one hand tearing at my hair._

_"No, you don't understand! I love you, Jewel. Why d'you think I left those flowers outside your door? I'd do anything to bring you back. Just tell me where you are and I'll carry you all the way home. Please listen to me. You're not safe alone. You're only thirteen. I can protect you, care for you. Love you. And… I thought you said you loved me too, a few days ago."_

_I watch Jewel's eyes close tight. At first I think she's weeping, but then she throws back her head and from her lovely mouth comes cruel laughter._

_"Oh Sam, you're so, so wrong," she barks. "I don't love you- I HATE you!"_


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Hi, lovers! Here's the new chapter, I hope you enjoy it! Please Read and Review x**

* * *

Chapter Ten

*

**Dreams- Sam**

*

_My nightmare is a disease now. It chills my heart and boils my very blood _

_I listen to Jewel's spiteful laughter, shivering weakly. Yet, rather than crumbling in despair, I'm possessed by a sudden rage. I smash the phone against the opposite wall with a rusted raw of pain. _

_My world shatters like the shards of a mirror. I turn, and Alison is sitting beside me. She presses her lips to my cheek before I can stop her and kisses me. I feel myself flush crimson. Alison smiles at me, sweet as sugar, but her eyes sparkle with deviance. She gets up and walks away, hips swaying side to side._

_I call after her. Alison stops at once. She giggles breathily. Then she swivels back to me and I see she's changed. She's become… __**monstrous**__._

_Her pretty mouth is stretched into a voracious scarlet smirk, tongue flicking seductively over lips and jagged teeth. She is lethal, an obvious carnivore. _

_My limbs freeze up. I cannot escape her. _

_She reaches for me with a taloned hand, smile stretched wide._

"_Sam, Sam, Sam…" she murmurs tenderly. She kissed my jaw each time she utters my name. I groan. My pulse increases, my throat tightens. I don't know what to do. This is wrong, __**so**__ wrong, but I can't push her away. I'm trapped in her grip like a fly in a spider's web._

_Alison traces a clawed finger down my chest. It draws blood, yet I feel no pain. But somehow I feel horribly aroused. Alison knows. She clambers into my lap with cat-like purrs and pressed her body to mine. I feel her breasts heave against my chest._

"_Alison, get off me. This isn't right."_

_The impious grin grows. Before I can protest, Alison's tongue snakes into my mouth and entwines with mine. She moans, teasing me. _

_Then suddenly she puts a hand to my crotch. _

_Something stirs within me. Hot, primal, strong._

_I can't take any more of this madness. _

_I shove Alison away so hard that her skull connects with the bedpost with a dull crack. She screams out in agony. Still I come towards her, fired with violence. The room spins around me. Colours interblend in the air. I reach down to grab Alison's arm and as I do so, a deafening siren sounds a warning. I grunt. The sound is drilling into my brain. _

"_Shut up, damn it!" I yell. _

_Distracted, I don't notice Alison slithering between my legs before it's too late. _

_My fists clench. _

"_Get the hell off me, bitch!"_

_This time I slap her. Hard. And again, and again until her flesh starts to bleed. Yet the only response I receive is the screech of a massive metal blade._

_* * *_

Sam jerked awake. He felt sick with shame, yet in spite of this he had become hard. It was both uncomfortable and humiliating to bear.

"Disgusting," he muttered, trying to push the filthy thoughts from his head. "Thank God it was only a dream."

Sam yawned, and rolled onto his back.

"Hey Alison, you awake yet? Just checking you're ok, 'cause I…"

He paused mid-sentence. He could feel himself growing cold with fear.

Alison was gone.

* * *

Alison clambered out of the shower in a rush. Desperate to cover her nakedness, she slipped across the tiles and searched for her clothes. She could find nothing but a coarse white gown size in a size too small. Regardless of this, Alison pulled it over her dripping head and cringed. Her mother was still screaming for assistance, her words punctuated with cusses and shrieks.

_She always did have a foul tongue,_ thought Alison.

She yanked the dress down, tearing the collar, and fled in the direction of her mother's cries with a beating heart. Her emotions twisted like snakes inside her. Alison had always claimed to dislike her mother, but this thinly veiled unconditional love. She hated the thought of her being hurt. After all, it was her responsibility to care for her. Good daughters were loyal to their mothers' wishes. Everyone said it, especially the Church, and they were not to be disobeyed. Ever.

Alison took her dagger from where she had tossed it to the floor and crept into the doorway. From there she peered into the murky hotel room. Someone was sobbing quietly within, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly where they were. Her eyes narrowed, picking out shapes here and there. Nothing looked anything like her Mother.

Something stirred. Alison took in a sharp breath.

Then she let it go again. It was just a rat, which skittered across the room and disappeared under the bed.

_Bed._

Suddenly everything clicked in Alison's mind. The perfume, the smell of sex, the rumpled duvet. The _freshness _of the place.

Her mother had been here all along. Waiting for her.

Hesitantly, Alison called out to her.

"Mom? Is that you?"

The bedcovers twitched visibly. Alison edged forwards cautiously. Something was hunched beneath the duvet, arms raised high above their head. On closer inspection, Alison could see a hint of blond curls resting on the pillow. The infamous face sat comfortably below them, barely more than a tanned smudge in the gloom.

It was her. Alison could feel it.

"What are you _doing_ here?" she asked softly. "How'd you find me?"

No answer. Only the rasp of laboured breath broke the silence.

"Talk to me, Mom. Are you alr…"

"_I'm hurting."_

The words were so abrupt that Alison jumped. She swallowed hard.

Every inch of her was screaming to run.

"You're _what_?" she said nervously.

"I'm being torn apart, and you left me _alone_. This is all your fault, you selfish little brat."

The insults stung. It was bitter and resentful, the utterance of a playground bitch.

"All this, and I'm pregnant, too."

This was so ridiculous that Alison giggled. Her mother had always said how much she despised being a parent, and that she'd never have another child. Ever. But her voice was tight, agonised. It made Alison nervous.

"Very funny, Mom," she said uncertainly. "Now listen. I-"

"NO! Don't talk, just help me!" her mother bellowed. "_You're supposed to help me_!"

She arched her back, and in that moment the light bulb flickered and revealed the horror her mother had become.

She was fixed to the wall, arms nailed in a gruesome mockery of crucifixion. Black blood streamed from her wrists, thick as tar. And she was ugly. So very, very ugly.

Alison's could barely recognise her anymore.

The beautiful curls were unchanged, but once lovely face had been hideously disfigured. Her eyes were stitched shut and her mouth, that voluptuous pout, was stretched wide over tortured jaws. These jaws screeched and sobbed as her mother contorted under her duvet.

Alison wanted to vomit, scream, and run like Hell. But she made herself stay, hands clamped tightly over her mouth.

"Oh Mom," she wailed, aghast. "What happened to you?"

She reached out with the intent to console. But somehow she found herself reaching down to whisk the covers away.

She wished she hadn't.

Her mother's chest was a mass of mouldering bandages that were alive with maggots and rot. Her legs had been chained wide apart, the bones snapped so that the protruded through the skin. Her stomach swelled above them, bulging and rippling as if something was inside.

Then, worst of all, were her genitals. They had become an enormous mouth that split her lower half in two. And as Alison stared into it, the thing snarled and lunged at her face.

She screamed aloud; she couldn't help it. She had never seen anything quite so horrifying in her life. Row upon row of craggy enamel snapped at her viciously, hissing in pure hate. They guarded an empty gullet and a barbed, bludgeoning tongue. The mouth was like a cavern of hell, and what made it truly chilling was the fact it was attached to a _human body_.

Alison could take no more. She turned and tried to make a run for it, but her foot caught and she fell headlong.

When she looked down, she saw that there was a fuzzy toy rabbit sitting innocently with its arms wrapped around her ankle. She kicked it away and tried to stand. It was useless. Alison collapsed again, only able to watch helplessly as her 'mother' fought aggressively against her restraints.

"Mom, what the hell happened?" Alison demanded, clutching her dagger handle. "What _are_ you?"

"I told you, honey, I'm pregnant," the mother replied. A smile lit its ravaged face. "I'm having a baby. That's why I called you, Alison. My kids _need_ you."

Bile surge into Alison's throat. She choked it back.

"But _why_? I don't understand."

The mother didn't answer. It simply roared and reared upwards. Alison saw the things in its stomach writhe against and bulge out, as if trying to escape. It dawned on her what was going to happen and she pushed the thought away, revolted.

No way. It's impossible.

Yet, as the mother screeched wildly, Alison knew she was right.

"_They're_ coming…"

The beast gave one last balk of pain and collapsed onto the mattress. Alison looked on in disgust as it heaved, the unnatural second mouth gagging violently. Then, with a hacking retch, it vomited over the bed.

Good God.

First came the fluid. Steaming acid spewed from those gruesome jaws, eating through the bed-sheets with an acrid smell of burning.

Next came the blood.

And then came the children.

And _what_ children they were.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Okie dokie, guys, here we go. New chapter! Please do Read and Review to tell me how I'm doing xxx**

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

The demonic children squirmed from their mother's gullet, keening weakly as her teeth raked their newborn flesh. Every inch of their slime-covered skin was raw and scarlet with blood. But their eyes, which turned on Alison with an intense and unbridled hate, were the infected yellow of pus. They gazed at her with such heavy loathing that she was utterly unnerved. She could easily image them swarming round her, like swarms of oversized maggots.

Shuddering deeply, Alison backed away.

"Don't leave my babies," snapped the mother. "They're hungry."

She growled softly as her spawn began to feast on her meaty thighs.

"They want their big sister to feed them. They _love_ you, Alison."

"Shut up," said Alison. Her eyes never strayed from the vile triplets. "You're not my real Mom. You can't be. She's human. And you… you're…"

"_I am _your mother," the beast replied. "For you always did perceive her as a monster."

The fiend flicked its beautiful hair over its shoulder and yanked the restraints again. Its spawn cried out shrilly in bitter sympathy. Alison winced, the high-pitched sound drilling into her skull. She found herself gripped with the urge to kill, to stamp upon the triplets as if they were spiders. Just as she was thinking this, one twisted round to gawp at her. Its slipped across the bedcovers like a lumpy fish and balked aggressively.

Alison looked at it contemptuously. It was built like a worm- slimy, no legs. It did, however, possess a pair of feeble arms, but they twitched at its sides. Useless. The thing could not defend itself.

Good.

Alison raised a fist above her head and brought it swinging down on the demon-child's cheek. It struck home with a resonating crack that snapped the wretch's neck. Yet, unbelievably, it did not die. It screeched at her, nasty mouth agape. Then with a darting move it latched onto her arm with barbed teeth and bit hard.

"_Shit!_"

Pain exploded inside Alison's arm. She shook it from violently but the child held on with an expression of grim determination. It began gnawing hungrily at her muscle, slobbering like a rabid dog. Alison's cries of agony drew the others to her within seconds. She was quickly pinned to the floor by the monstrous infants, her wounded limb twisted beneath her.

One child ripped at her cheek. Another stripped skin from her thighs and snorted with cruel delight.

Words could not describe Alison's pain. Her spine arched as she thrashed in a distressed frenzy. The mother cackled delightedly. _Its- _blind face was rapt with pride in her spawn. Alison's eyes bulged. She tried to scream again but the mother spat birth-fluid into her mouth, choking her. It scalded her lips and tongue and erupted in tiny blisters that swelled in stinging clusters.

_They're gonna eat me alive I'm gonna die I'm gonna die…_

Suddenly Alison wrenched her arm from beneath her and, with a sharp downwards strike, attacked with the dagger she had still clenched in her fist. She struck off the head of the nearest beast in a single stroke. It writhed as it died, the stump of its neck beating against the ground. The monstrous mother wept with a hideous grief. It was a grotesque parody of human misery, yet perfect in its depiction. It made Alison feel soiled to look at it.

"He's dead," sobbed the mother through grossly widened jaws. "How could you, Alison. How could you?"

The beast's anguish fired Alison with a fresh resolve to survive. She struck out right and left with all of her remaining strength. The demon-children evaded her. They grew wilier by the second, driven by the scent of death. Alison stabbed at them without mercy. They seemed to realise that she would not succumb to them again and retreated. The first cowered behind the shelter of its mother's scarred thighs. But the other foolishly crawled forward and Alison lashed out at it, slitting its throat.

The moment it died its brother emerged. It latched onto Alison's wrist, one fang catching a vein. A jet of blood struck it in the eye, surprising it so much it let go and slithered away over the bed-sheets.

"Don't touch him!" the mother growled as Alison advanced upon it. "I'll kill you. I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Try it," Alison said breathlessly. She beat at the hateful infant, avoiding the ravenous fangs of its mother's jaws. Her blade shot through the back of its head, splitting the skull in two. It died whimpering for its mother. Alison felt an unpleasant pang inside her and recoiled.

She turned, intending to make for the exit. She was too slow. The enraged mother-monster wrapped a leg around her shoulders, pulling her in close. Alison panicked and flailed with her dagger. The creature held on with an iron grip.

"_You will feed my children_!" it snarled.

Alison yelled in horror. She had suddenly realised that the mother's leg was dragging her head slowly towards its second mouth, ready to thrust her inside. She was so close she could see every one of its jagged teeth in grisly detail.

Her struggles grew desperate. She cried uncontrollably, knowing it was too late to save herself. Closer she went, so close she could feel the mother's rancid breath on her face. Alison squeezed her eyes shut and prayed.

Her forehead pushed against the beast's stinking tongue.

This was it. _Game over_…

* * *

Sam rose from his bed in a state of terrified frustration. He felt like screaming. Alison had run away again, _just_ as he had saved her life. It felt as if all he had done was for nothing. It didn't matter that she hadn't intended to vex him- Sam dimly remembered waking some time during the night to hear Alison's mumbled excuse –she should have known not to leave him.

It was dangerous out there. More than dangerous.

Sam had to find her. If one of those creatures caught her he'd never forgive himself. Alison was an innocent- she didn't deserve to die. Sam got dressed, almost sick with worry. The anxiety was churning his insides. The sensation was far to familiar to him for comfort.

In the muddled fog of his memory Sam remembered another girl. She had treated him just as carelessly as Alison, in her way, and it had led to something… bad. Something he couldn't quite grasp. He sensed, however, that it was foul and rotten as the mould that had claimed this hotel. He would not- _could_ not –remember it.

Not if _he_ could help it, anyway.

After retrieving his jacket, Sam stood outside the bathroom and listened carefully. There was no sound from within. He tried the doorknob and nervously peered inside. He was astonished to find the entire room swathed in ancient cobwebs. They were so thick he could hardly make out the shape of the shower. But amongst the mess there was no sign of Alison.

Sam retuned to the hotel room and headed for the door. A series of damp footprints marked the carpet leading up to it. He cursed under his breath. It was just as he'd suspected. Alison had been stupid enough to leave by herself. He wrenched down the handle angrily, muttering a thousand dreadful threats he had no intentions of fulfilling.

The door did not budge an inch.

He pushed at it again, heaving against the wood. It remained resolutely jammed. Sam knelt down to peer into the lock. He knew that he had left the key there last night in his rush to reach the bed. Now it had vanished completely.

A hot rush of fury hit him.

Alison had left the room and _locked him inside_.

"You goddam bitch!" Sam cursed, surprising himself with the ferocity of his own words. "You…"

He paused abruptly. Above the racket of his own breathing, he could hear something sweet carry on the air. It was the sound of mindless humming. A woman's voice, singing a pretty melody.

A shiver of dread ensnared him.

Sam turned slowly. A maid, dressed in black and white, was quietly rearranging the rumpled duvet. A very normal activity, Sam supposed.

The problem was, _she_ wasn't normal in the slightest.

She wasn't even human.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: New chapter! It's quite long in comparison to the others, I guess. You will notice that the two 'attacks' in this section almost parallel one another. That's intentional :) All will be explained eventually, my friends. Now please, Read and Review. Thank you xxx**

Chapter 12

**Alison**

Alison's tears rolled down her cheeks, shameful and tainted with fear. They splashed one by one upon the mother's waiting tongue. It groaned softly, massive jaws creaking as they eased further apart. The foul winds of its breath were hot on her skin. It carried the stink of its last meal, flesh, blood and bone growing rancid in its gut. Alison shuddered deeply. The mother monster snarled in response, stretching its mouth as wide as possible. Alison knew what it was going to do. Those fearsome teeth were going to snap together and rend her head from the shoulders.

Drool splashed into her sobbing mouth.

Then the jaws started to close.

Blood trickled from Alison's neck.

Suddenly there were five deafening gunshots and the mother screamed like a tortured animal. It began to convulse violently, the force of which sent Alison tumbling from the bed. Cringing in pain, she scrambled up onto her knees to stare at the hellish creature. It was dead. She could hardly believe it, but the evidence was undeniable. The beast's abdomen was a mass of bullets and twitching flesh. Its face, too, had been blown apart. All that was left were fragments of skull in a mass of beautiful hair.

Disgusted yet wildly relieved, she bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut. The image of the mutilated mother remained imprinted on her retinas no matter how she tried to forget it. She knew it would never go away completely. Horrors like that could not be pushed away, no matter how eager you were to be rid of them.

After several minutes passed by, Alison weakly lifted her head. She tried to stand. Her legs were weak with shock, skittish and shivering. They were completely unable to support her. Every time she thought she was steady, they buckled sharply beneath her.

"Please, Miss Desdemona, let me help you," a voice insisted from behind her. An arm slipped around her shoulders, easing her effortlessly onto her feet. Alison jolted in surprise, snapping round with such speed that her neck clicked. There was a man standing there, holding a gun casually in one hand. He was handsome in a studious way, and of an undeterminable age. He studied her coolly from behind elegant glasses, smiling in an odd yet charming manner. Alison felt very self-conscious under his calm scrutiny. She tugged at the skirt of her dress, bunching the material anxiously in her fists.

He just saved my life… and we've never even met before. But the way he's looking at me makes me think that maybe, somehow, we have…

"I'm so sorry," stammered Alison, feeling shy and childish. "Do I know you?"

"No," said the stranger mildly. "You were unconscious when your… _friend_ checked you into the hotel."

For some reason, this made Alison feel acutely uncomfortable.

"Now," the stranger continued. "How would he feel if he knew how close you had come to death today?"

"Um… mad, I guess."

The man quirked an eyebrow.

"Look," said Alison hastily. "I really appreciate you saving me from that monster, Mr…"

"Corrigan," the man said, sliding his gun back within the confines of his jacket. "And as manager of this hotel, I saw it as my responsibility to aid , there is someone who I'd like you to meet. He is rather interested in you. "

"Am I really that popular?" Alison quipped. She grinned, regaining some of her usual composure. "I'm flattered. Who is it exactly?"

Corrigan's eyes flickered. He swallowed, apparently unwilling to answer her. In the end he evaded the question altogether, gliding to Alison's side with a suavely casual air. She winced as his shirt brushed one of her wounds.

"My _client,_"said Corrigan. "Can be found in one of the basement lounges. He has permanent residence there, as far as I'm aware, although he often comes and goes. He's an unusual man to say the least, but not unfriendly."

Corrigan propelled Alison towards the hotel-room door, tactfully turning her away from the mother's corpse. Startled by his touch, Alison leapt backwards and almost fell again. Her lips tightened into a thin line of outrage.

"I can't just _go with_ you!" she cried. "You're a complete stranger! How can you expect me to just _follow_ you like that? I mean, look what nearly happened to me! Anyway," she added, almost haughtily. "I don't trust anybody I don't know."

Corrigan's expression darkened.

"That, Miss, is rather hypocritical of you. Haven't you recently shared a bed with a strange male? Five years your senior, too. Evidently you trust _him_ not to harm you."

Alison reddened, knowing he was right. She did not even consider that she hadn't much choice, being unconscious at the time, or that it was odd that Corrigan should have such knowledge. Shock and fatigue clouded her judgement. She let her fingers fall from the handle of her pocketed dagger and smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry, sir. You have a point," said Alison. "I… I guess I'll come with you. You did rescue me, after all. But if you try anything-"

Corrigan threw up his hands in mocking surrender.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare! You'd tear me to pieces, I'm sure," he said teasingly. He held out a hand towards her. "Now, please, follow me. I'll show you the way."

Still vaguely cautious, Alison accepted his arm and reluctantly obeyed. As they left the room, she felt a chilly sensation probe the back of her neck. Upon glancing back over her shoulder she saw the stuffed pink rabbit that had tripped her. It had one paw raised, waving at her. Alison couldn't help shuddering. Corrigan noticed. He rubbed her shoulder through her dress in an effort to calm her.

Alison tried not to show her unease. She had nothing left to be afraid of, yet...

She shook herself vigorously. Somebody had just walked over her grave.

"We are almost there," Corrigan announced, after half an hour's silence. They were now approaching a pair of mirrored elevator doors. Alison saw herself reflected in them- pale, limping, scared. As she looked closer, she noticed Corrigan's face peering over her shoulder. It was twisted into a frightening leer that was almost… hungry.

Alison opened her mouth to confront him, but Corrigan clapped his hand over her mouth before she could make a sound. The sudden change in his behaviour stunned her. Further impressing this upon Alison, Corrigan pulled her head back and whispered venomously into her ear.

"My client will enjoy you," he hissed. "As _I'd_ have enjoyed you, given the chance. You have only yourself to blame. Look at you. You _crave_ punishment. You've driven me mad, _all_ of you, with your flesh and skin and words… you wish you were a child, to be hoisted over Daddy's lap and spanked within an inch of your life."

Alison drew in a sharp breath. She feel his hard arousal at her back, digging in. Revolted, she bit into the flesh of his palm. It moved away, but immediately replaced by something worse as Corrigan leaned over and forced his tongue down her throat. He kissed her like an animal, licking her lips and mouth and the beginnings of her throat. Alison soon gave up fighting him. It only seemed to excite Corrigan further. He grunted in pleasure, hands groping her chest, her legs, her crotch.

Alison felt sick.

Jewel's warning words echoed in her head.

"_Value your purity well, for soon he will take it from you._"

Alison, fuelled by desperation, put an end to his abuse. She nipped the dagger from her pocket and slashed his pretty face. He released her at once, clutching the weeping wound in an effort to stem the blood. Then he smiled sadistically as Alison stumbled against the elevator doors. They slid smoothly apart with a metallic hiss. Alison hurtled through them, ankle turning on the greasy floor. She did not pause to nurse it. Enraged, she rounded on Corrigan with narrowed eyes.

"You _creep_!" she barked hysterically. "I... I'll _kill _you!"

"Come on then," said Corrigan. He beckoned tauntingly. "Do it. Cut me open."

Alison ran at him without thought.

_I'll **kill** him. Cut out his tongue, teach him to…_

The ground shifted abruptly, tossing her back onto the floor like a rag doll. A series of heavy clangs and screeches sounded from within the walls. Alison blinked, suddenly understanding.

"Stop it!" she demanded, picking herself up again. "Let me _out_!"

Corrigan blocked her escape.

"I apologise, Miss," he said. "But my _client_ is waiting for you. Don't worry, Alison. I'll be sure to inform Mr. Reeves of your passing."

With that, Corrigan turned and sauntered out of sight. Alison made a move to follow him. But the elevator doors jerked and slammed shut in her face. Alison screamed. She launched herself at them again, hammering her them with her fists until they bled.

Still there was no freedom. The elevator was already descending.

_There's no way out_, thought Alison. _I'm trapped._ _I'm being sent down to this friend of his... and who knows if he'll let me come back._

And somehow, in its raw form of uncertainty, that thought was unspeakably frightening to her.

* * *

**Sam **

He stared at the maid in fascination.

_She_ was a demon.

Her hair, which was alive with lice, curtained a face as vacant and grey as the dead. The mouth was an an obscene Glasgow-smile lined with vicious fangs. Yet her body was petite, shapely, even attractive. A frightful, if sexy, parody of veluptuousness.

Sam hands shook as he pulled his gun from his belt head. The maid approached him, tottering on high-heels. They gave her a wobbling, slightly childish gait. In spite of this endearing factor she was clearly dangerous. She wielded a black feather duster made of tiny, lethal blades in one of her taloned hands.

Sam moved quickly out of range.

The maid attacked. He shot at her, blowing holes into her ample chest. She let out a girlish squeal and lunged at him. The duster whipped across his face. Sam gasped and fired again. This time the maid shied away. She dashed straight for the door. Sam grinned. She had made herself the perfect target.

He was just about to blow her apart when he spotted a glisten of gold in her free hand.

_A key_.

The key to this room.

Sam tackled the maid's thighs, bringing her crashing to the ground in a flurry of nails and teeth. She clawed at his eyes, spitting blood. Sam pinned her down. He tried to snatch the keys away, but she opened up the back of his hand with the duster. Sam smacked her with gun in retaliation. The maid growled, clinging to him. Then she scrabbled at his mouth and forced her fist inside. Sam choked. His sweating hands struggled with the gun. Somehow his fumbling fingers clipped the trigger, pulling it taught.

_Destruction._

The maid gargled on her own blood. Sam grabbed her right arm, twisting it behind her back. He held it there grimly until the bones cracked. The maid spat a gob of stinging bile into his face- but that didn't matter. The key was skidding away across the carpet, free of her monstrous grip.

The maid keened, tossing her head helplessly from side to side. She wouldn't survive much longer. So without regret, Sam snatched her duster and thrust it through her chest, piercing her still-beating heart.

He didn't watch her die. He just left her there, twitching, gurgling and alone. _His_ thoughts returned to the key once more. He retrieved it from the ground and slid it into the lock. After a hefty twist, something clicked and the door swung open. Sam felt a bizarre sense of pride. He shoved the key into his pocket and glanced up and down the beckoning hallway.

_Alison can't be far away. She must be in one of the other rooms…_


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N**: Ok, so here's Chapter 13. Yet again I have put everyone through the most horrible of tortures. But that's Silent Hill, right? Please take the time to Read and Review xxx

* * *

Chapter 13

**Sam**

He searched corridor after corridor, losing himself in the maze of winding hallways for what seemed like hours to him. His cell phone, which still refused to function properly, crackled occasionally with static. It was both an irritation and a blessing; for he soon realised that it was connected to the world around him. There were creatures here, worse than the ones outside. Luckily he had only caught fleeting glimpses of them and didn't have to fight. Of Alison there was no sign but, as he rounded the fifteenth corner, Sam came face to face with the last person he wished to see.

Al Corrigan.

Sam instantly sensed something was wrong. Corrigan was smiling at him- not a smile of icy politeness, but a genuine yet cruel one. His waxy skin was flushed and his shirt was rumpled, as if he had been involved in some physical struggle. In spite of this, he still maintained his air of controlled dignity. Noticing Sam, he opened his arms in an exaggerated gesture of welcome that oozed blatant sarcasm.

Sam narrowed his eyes. Corrigan had the look of someone who had committed a crime, but was not afraid of being discovered. Such a mood could be dangerous. Sam knew he must tread carefully now.

"Good morning, Mr. Reeves," said Corrigan. "I hope you slept well."

He circled Sam like a predator.

"I suppose you're aware of your companion's… absence? A girl like that is not easily forgettable, I'm sure. "

Sam looked him straight in the eye and knew what had happened. He clenched his fists.

"You_ took_ her, didn't you? Where the hell is she, Corrigan?"

"Accompanying my superior," came the reply. "She will not burden you again, sir. It's rare for the _fiend_ to release his guests- at least, whilst they still breathe. You are freed from her now. That's what you wanted, right?"

Corrigan made as if to leave. Sam stopped him, slamming the revolver against his jaw with one trembling hand. The gun felt hot, greasy, the trigger seeming to twitch in his fingers. It was frightening how quickly one could turn to violence.

"Show me where she is, or I swear I will kill you," Sam said coldly.

"So unlike yourself, sir," Corrigan purred. He seemed unconcerned by the threat. "The foolish child is growing into something far more terrible. Your sins have made a monster of you. I'll show you where Miss Alison _disappeared_, sir. Nothing will come of it."

"Shut up," said Sam. He released Corrigan from the wall and made him lead the way. He hated the man, with his swaggering walk and confusing words. It would be a relief to see him dead. But, for now, Sam knew he had to keep him alive or else never find Alison.

Corrigan stopped abruptly. He was facing a pair of silver doors like twin mirrors. Instinctively, Sam reached out to touch them. Something stuck to his thumb, clinging stubbornly to the sweating pad. When he held it to the light he saw that it was a black hair, so slim it could have been the fragment of a dream. Sam felt peculiar looking at it. It filled him with a sickening fear that he could not shake away.

_Something's hurt Alison._

"How do you get these doors open?" Sam enquired. Quietly, Corrigan leaned over and pressed a dark spot on the wall. For a moment Sam was dumbfounded. Then he remembered the existence of normal things like elevators and relaxed. The double-doors opened gradually, groaning with effort, until there was a dark hollow where they had once been. Corrigan chuckled softly, handsome mouth twisted into a harsh sneer.

"I've done all I can for _you_, sir. Now go, search for your harlot."

Then without warning he turned and vanished around the nearest corner. Sam considered calling after him, but decided against it. He didn't want any more to do with him than could be helped, and besides- Alison's safety was much more important.

Once he had pocketed the revolver, Sam approached the gaping doorway and hovered in front of it. He looked down and felt his stomach twist in horror.

_It isn't possible. This has to be a hallucination of some kind._

Sam knelt down, thrusting his hand into the darkness ahead. He groped around, heart hammering in his chest. He felt himself sag in despair.

"No," he whispered. "No way. He wouldn't. Not even _he_ could be that sadistic."

For, rather than an elevator, there was an empty, echoing shaft.

* * *

In the bowels of the hotel, where the basement stood, a metal contraption hit the ground with a resounding clang. Something nearby flinched and painstakingly raised its head. Its hands retreated from the flesh it was gripping, tearing out hanks of glistening meat. Then it growled gutturally, daubing handfuls of blood upon itself.

Another poor wretch had entered its company, it seemed.

* * *

Alison rose unsteadily to her feet and stepped cautiously out of the elevator. The room around her looked like a hellish torture chamber. The floor was scattered with cadavers, some human, some monstrous. Assorted body parts had been cut out and lined up in decorative rows. But there were plenty of full corpses, many of which were slit from crotch to throat.

Most of them were fresh.

The smell rising from this butchery was unbearable. Rotting meat, stale urine and old vomit choked the air with their putrid stink. The sheer power of the stench sent Alison reeling. She doubled over, retching emptily again and again. She had nothing left inside her to bring up. After a while, the nausea faded into a dull, painful throb of the gut and she was able to straighten up again.

Alison peered around her in fascinated disgust. Surgical tables surrounded her, stacked high with plucked eyeballs and polished skulls. Hands criss-crossed in intricate patterns on the ground. Their headless bodies lay in a single pile up on the left. They were all nude and in various states of decomposition. On closer inspection, Alison noted that all of them were female.

_Every single one_.

She could not look anywhere without seeing soft breasts and splayed thighs. Her breath caught in her throat, panicked by the obscene sight.

_What the heck happened here? Was there a massacre, or some religious sacrifice? How could anybody be so twisted?_

Alison passed each grisly item, moving deeper and deeper into the grotesque chamber. The further she went, the stronger a hold her paranoia had on her. She had begun to hear strange noises, see strange things. Now and again she'd see one of the corpses moving out of the corner of her eye, and would whirl around only to see nothing but immobile death. It wasn't her fault, she supposed. She was exposed and vulnerable, despite the dagger she clutched so tightly in her fist.

_The sooner I'm outta here, the better. Maybe I should go back to the elevator… Sam'll be wondering where I am by now… I've punished him enough…_

Alison turned, intending to go back the way she had come. But the moment she took a step forward there came a wild metallic screech from behind her. Alison jolted in shock. She knew that sound all too well. It haunted her mind and was with her now, taunting her with brutal, half-formed memories…

Everything pieced together in her mind. The cadavers, their naked bodies, Corrigan's cryptic talk. He knew everything, Alison realised. He knew, and had used it against he. In doing so he'd brought her here...

To Pyramid Head's realm.

Alison had gone to him like a lamb to the slaughter.

She dashed through the chamber, scrabbling up the mounds of the deceased with furious speed. She was adamant on getting out alive. Her legs pumped harder than ever before, thighs burning with effort, but still she ran on with her heart in her mouth. The screeching followed, growing louder. The _thing_ was gaining on her. Alison increased her speed. Carnage splattered up into her face. She wiped it away and kept going, side torn with a painful stitch.

Her lungs felt as if they were filled with fire.

She couldn't last much longer.

Alison kept running for as long as she possibly could. Then she skidded to a halt, dropping down onto her hands and knees. She crawled beneath a nearby iron desk and waited. Her head tilted to one side as she listened tensely. The whole chamber was silent as a morgue. The shriek of metal had ceased. This either meant Pyramid Head had stopped searching for her…

_Or_ he was standing close by, soundless, menacing, waiting for her to emerge.

Alison gulped. Her knees ached from crouching, yet she didn't dare stand. She stayed, half-kneeling, with sweat pouring down her back. The reek of the surrounding bodies choked her. A cough tickled her throat and she was forced to hold it in.

The seconds dragged on. Longer, longer...

Alison stiffened. She'd heard something stir in the gloom nearby.

The hairs on the nape of her neck began to prickle.

_Maybe it can see me. Maybe it's watching me..._

Everything in her body screamed for her to run.

She couldn't.

If she did, it'd see her for sure. And then…

Alison shuddered. She knew what the monster would do if it found her. It was something she would never wish on anyone. The mere thought of it made her flesh craw on her bones. _It_ would relish that, she knew.

_It. _The monster. The inhuman beast.

_Why aren't I running? Oh, yes…_

_I can't. I can't move, because if I do, that beast-_

That sound came again, closer now. Alison made herself look down. Something wasn't right. The bodies beside the table had changed. Each of them had been split in two, as if by an enormous blade.

Alison's eyes widened in terror. She scrambled out from under the desk and made a bid to escape. But she slipped and twisted her leg awkwardly. Still she strained forward. She had to get away. Had to...

A shadow fell upon her from behind. It was as vast and enveloping as the fog in the streets as it bore down upon her. Alison's mind broke down into a wordless hum of panic.

_Don't look don't look whatever you do don't look don't let it see you know its there…_

A sudden blow sent Alison crashing to the floor. She rolled onto her back and stared upwards, seeing her attacker face to face for the first time. Her jaw dropped. Then, as sense and fear and despair rushed back into her system, she could not help but scream.

She screamed with rage, screamed with everything she had left within her. Screamed till blood wetted her tongue and there was no longer any meaning or purpose to her pain.

Only one comprehensible word passed her lips.

"_Why?"_


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Sorry for the wait, I've just recovered from a spanish exam. Here it is, the final of the chapters before the four alternate endings (two bad, two good). I hope you enjoy it. Please Read and Review xxx**

Chapter 14

**Sam **

Sam swung on the rope in an unsteady circle.

Seeing that the elevator had gone, he'd decided to lower climb down into the depths below regardless. He had to know what had happened to Alison no matter what it took. Besides, he assumed it would be quite a simple feat. However, it was proving to be far more difficult that he had thought. Sam tried clumsily to brace himself against the wall. It was impossible to get a decent grip, and eventually he gave up. Both palms were chafed and stinging with rope burns. Also, his head throbbed with a persistent ache that seemed to have come from nowhere. It made it difficult to concentrate on continuing the risky descent.

Fumbling ineptly on the fraying rope, Sam managed to lower himself a few metres down. He could sense that he was getting close to the bottom of the shaft. This was confirmed when his boots knocked against something that clanged hollowly- the top of the elevator. So Alison hadn't- as he had feared -been thrown down to her death.

She may still be alive.

Sam crouched quickly to find a strange little hatch in the elevator roof. It opened grudgingly, creaking like a rusted gate. He just about managed to squeeze through, landing unscathed on his hands and knees. The rope had entangled itself around his ankle. Sam untied it and stood up, brushing off his knees. The elevator doors were wide open as if somebody had already gone through. This gave him hope. Stepping cautiously through the open gap, he blinked in the gloom and fumbled for his cell. Although it barely functioned, the screen made a decent flashlight.

Sam held it before him and drew in a sharp breath at what he saw.

Corpses littered the floor, carpeting it in an obscene, decaying gore. To his eyes, all of them looked small and human despite their hideous wounds. Their features, which were mangled and rotten like spoiled fruit, were delicately female.

Children. They were all girl-children.

Sam tried not to look as he picked his way through them. It was sickening to think that perhaps Alison lay somewhere among them. He knew for certain that if he caught even a glimpse of her mischievous self, nude and bloody as a slaughterhouse pig, he would go completely mad with guilt.

Don't think about it, he chided himself. Block it out.

He reached up to nurse his pounding head.

"_**NO! NO! WHY**_?" something howled abruptly. Sam jumped, almost dropping his cell phone in shock. "Why do I have to be…?"

The words trailed off into choking snorts.

Sam peered round wildly, gun already in hand. In moments he notice a heavy iron cage in the centre of the room, its sides covered in crucified corpses. There was something inside it. Something alive. It was jerking and rocking to and fro as if it was having a seizure. Sam approached it warily, expecting it to be some kid of monster. Then urgently he recognised its shape and laughed in relief. He threw himself at the bars and reached through them with straining fingers.

"Alison, what are you doing in there? What happened?" he asked. "I've been going crazy looking for you."

Alison raised her head. She was lying on an iron gurney, wrists and ankles bound in criss-crossing chains to restrain her. Her hair was matted over her face so that only her wicked mouth showed. It was definitely her, yet she looked different somehow. Smaller. Weaker. Younger, even. Sam tried to ignore the shiver running down his spine.

"You were already crazy," said Alison, after a lengthy pause. Her voice was cold and vacant, quite unlike her own. "Crazy and… evil. To do what you did, you had to be. I know why you're here, Sam. You see, I'm not Alison, and you're not the person you think you are."

"What?"

Sam was beyond confusion. He floundered in his bewilderment, flashes of thought swirling in his mind. The headache was getting worse. He started to feel dizzy and unstable. So he clung to the cage for support that it could not possibly give.

"What do you _mean _I'm not who I think I am? This is madness. And if you're _not_ Alison, then who the hell are you? And where is she?"

Alison smiled grimly with lips like rosebuds and reached upwards. Wrapping her hair into a thick knot, she wound it round her knuckles and ripped hard. Sam bellowed in horror. He expected her scalp to tear away in a shower of blood. But instead its simply fell to the floor, revealing a head of pretty blonde curls.

"Oh no," Sam whispered. He understood.

Alison beamed sweetly up at him. Her eyes were blue, sparkling, wide and naïve. Sam finally allowed his legs to give way beneath him. He could see everything in perfect clarity and it hurt him more than he could bear.

Tears over-flowed, cleansing him.

"There is no Alison," said Alison. "She's gone. I am Jewel."

Sam didn't reply. He couldn't hear her anymore. His lost memories were flooding back in crimson waves. It felt as if his soul were breaking under the weight of it.

He remembered everything.

Most importantly, he remembered what he'd done to _Jewel._

Sam dragged himself to his knees like a dog. His very blood boiled with self-hatred. He was miserable, _foul_, evil as the Red God himself and more loathsome than he. Sam should have been dead long ago. Buried in a shallow and unmarked grave to be spat upon by passers by. It was all he deserved.

For what redemption could _he_ possibly receive?

**Jewel's Home, Two Days Previous**

_"Thank you so much for bringing Jewel home. I've been at my wit's end. I was thinkin' of bringin' in the police. But now I don't need to, and I'm real grateful. Might look like I don't care 'bout her but I do, ya know?"_

_The speaker, a woman with a puckered face, took a long drag from her cigarette. Glossed pink lips pouted around it like the mouth of a fish._

_"I know, Mrs. Kady," said Sam. "I about her too. I don't know why she ran away. It isn't like her..."_

_Mrs. Kady peered at him with bright blue eyes and cracked a smile._

_"Hah! Honey, if you say that you really don't know her at all," she cackled. "She's flightier than a goddam bird when she's got somethin' on her mind, though I cain't think as what that may be. Though I have a feelin' she has a thing for you. Better watch yourself, she'll be after that ass of yours before you can even grab onto it."_

_Sam toed the ground, highly embarrassed._

_"Anyhow," Mrs. Kady drawled lazily. "Where'd you find her? Train station? That's where she usually hides, though I swear I checked more than fifty times."_

_"No, she was in some alleyway. She didn't wanna come home till I told her that's where you hang out."_

_This was a dangerous statement, but Mrs. Kady exploded into filthy chuckles._

_"Ooh, you got courage, young man," she grinned. She flapped her highly manicured hands in a shooing motion. "Go on, scat. You go keep an eye on Jewel where you'll be sure to keep outta trouble. Can you stay all night? I'm workin' long hours. And… I may check into a hotel if things get too much. That ok? You sure you got time, what with your job and all? Alright then. So long, honey."_

_She leaned forward to plant a kiss on Sam's cheek._

_"Have a nice time, Mrs. Kady," he said politely, and moved across to the staircase. He lingered there, watching as Mrs. Kady left through the front door. True to her word, she would be out for the entire night. Sam was pleased about that. He was free to do whatever he wanted, and she would never know._

_As he climbed the stairs Sam found himself thinking about Jewel and how she had claimed to hate him. She'd seemed genuine. Maybe she'd never loved him at all, simply using him for her own pleasure. She was pretty, after all. Jewel could have anyone she wanted, yet she'd lured him instead- her twenty-one-year-old babysitter._

_Both of them enjoyed the thrills of the forbidden, but not the responsibility of relationship._

_This was why Jewel teased him and refused his proposal._

_She'd never intended to marry him in the first place. It had all been a twisted child's game right from the very start._

_She had made a toy of him, a slave, whilst he adored her unconditionally. Sam clenched his fists. He hated her._

_Yet he loved her, too…_

_Jewel's room was right ahead. From within came the sound of sweet singing. Sam did not allow himself to listen to that angelic voice. He slammed the door open and marched through without even knocking. Jewel lay upon her bed, legs crossed in the air provocatively. She had headphones on, listening to some pop song or another. Sam snatched them off her head and flung them across the room._

_Jewel's eyes snapped open._

_"You," she said bitterly. Her beauty became unpleasant. "Coming back to beg me to marry you again, huh? Answer's still no."_

_"You lied to me," Sam accused. "You never loved me. I thought you did, but no. You played me along for your own goddam amusement."_

_Jewel giggled._

_"Only just worked that out? You're slow. I liked you, Sam. You liked me. Sooo… I tricked you. It was fun! All the things you said- 'Jewel, you're so perfect. Jewel, you're so pretty.' I loved it!"_

_She grinned wolfishly at him. She looked like a predator, a black window spider with her legs intertwined. Sam didn't doubt that there was venom in that pretty mouth of hers._

_"You treated me like a princess," Jewel continued. "I felt special. Then you proposed, and it ruined everything. It was just too serious. So you see, I don't want you anymore. Game over. I'm not your girlfriend anymore, honey."_

_Suddenly, Sam couldn't take it anymore. For a long time he had been strained and tormented, and now he could take it no more. Something snapped inside him and he changed for the very worse._

_He wasn't a man anymore._

_He was a monster._

_He grabbed Jewel by the throat and snatched a handful of her scarlet dress in his fist. It tore, ribbons of silk fluttering down onto the carpet. His grip bruised Jewel's bare skin and she cried out in pain._

_"Sam, no! What the heck are you doing?"_

_He ignored her._

_Jewel's sharp nails slashed frantically at his eyes. Irritated, Sam grappled her wrists and pinned them to the headboard. Then he leaned in close to her, catching her flowery scent. It made him reel back momentarily._

_"I loved you, Jewel," he said to her._

_She spat in his face._

_"I hated you."_

_Sam didn't care. He kissed her cheeks, breasts, inner-thighs, too engrossed in her flesh to notice her violent slaps. He did, however, see her tears and sighed in twisted bliss. Jewel was beautiful in her misery._

_Sam stated his love one last time._

_And then he ruined them both._

_Jewel's sobs rose into a piercing scream. Sam hated the sound as much as he hated her. She'd made a fiend of him, a once decent man. She deserved this. She did._

_Pain and unhappiness were joy to him. Sam had reached the point of ecstasy, and everything was heaven. Agony was his zenith, a segment of his own atrocious euphoria, an orgasm rising with the call of death. He pressed a shard of shattered glass to her throat and answered it. The thrusting, gurgling convulsions of her demise served only to fuel his exhilaration. Even the choked begging and tiny hand fluttering against his cheeks did not disturb the fog of bliss._

_Yet once he was done, this pleasure became a nightmare of his own making._

_He saw Jewel, limp and broken as an unwanted doll._

_Only then did Sam realize the extent of what he had done._

_He looked at her and wept. Her skin was grey, no longer lovely, and her beautiful eyes had rolled back in her head. Oozing bite marks covered her upper half, the signature of his love. Sam felt as if he was descending into madness. Hysterically, he attempted to kiss her in a fruitless apology only to tasted death upon her. Revolted, he staggered back from the bed. There was blood covering both him and the sheets. It would be obvious to anyone that he had murdered her._

_They would capture him like a bird and lock him away forever if they found him._

_So he left abandoned Jewel and ran for his life. He wasn't sure how far he'd travelled. He'd taken buses, trains, anything he could afford. Towns and states flashed by like a dream. Then his money ran out, and he ended up stranded on a lonely freeway. He could have walked, he supposed, but he did not. He paused on the sidewalk, staring unseeingly into the darkness._

_Sam didn't want to run any further._

_He wanted to die._

_His senses had returned, and so had his humanity. He loathed himself for what he had done. The guilt preyed on his mind, whispering into the very edges of his consciousness._

_He was nothing. He was a killer. A monster in human skin._

_And so he stepped out into the traffic, praying death would claim him._

_But by some twisted miracle it did not. He was pulled onto the other side of the road by an elegant bespectacled figure who radiated ultimate calm. Sam clutched his legs and called him God, begging to be slaughtered. The figure politely declined._

_"No," he said. "Your suffering is not yet complete. Come, I will lead you to the salvation you seek. Silence is waiting."_

_And so Sam allowed himself to be pulled into a town swathed in fog, where his deepest fears lurked in cunning forms…_


	15. Bad Ending 1

**A/N: Sorry for the wait! Here's is the first of the endings; there are three more to go! Please Read and Review xxx**

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Bad Ending 1- Iniquity

Alison didn't know where she was anymore.

She had lost track of the time. Everything had blurred together into a grey, impenetrable mass like a bad dream. It frightened her in a strange, distant way. She wanted to wake up. Yet every time she tried something pushed her away, forcing her back into the depths of her own mind. It was safer there, she knew, but she hated it all the same.

Alison remembered how it began. She had been running away from something in the gruesome, corpse-ridden chamber when she had knocked to the ground. Instantly, she looked up to see who or what had caught her.

She wished she hadn't.

A creature was suspended from the ceiling, simpering at her in the gross parody of a young girl. Its face was scarred, bloated, with scarlet tentacles spilling from its split throat. Chains whipped from its lower orifices like serpents and dripped with feminine blood. Alison gasped. She couldn't scream; the fear was too intense. But the creatures eyes, which somehow as familiar as her own, were so miserable that she pitied its plight.

_She was human once,_ thought Alison._ I can sense it._

She became dizzy with nausea. It was terrible to imagine what horrors had befallen the beast.

"Why?" Alison blurted out. "Who are you? Are you_ real_?"

The girl-thing wailed, and for a moment Alison thought it would devour her. But then its head bowed, and its mangled chest began to heave with dry sobs.

"I was Jewel Kady," it whispered. It had the voice of an anxious little girl, breathy and tremulous. "I was, was, _was_. Until Sam came home."

An uncomfortable feeling passed down Alison's spine.

"He hurt me," said the girl-thing. "He made me his fuck puppet so I'd play with him But I didn't want to play any more. He forced me, yes, yes, and then left me to die. Bad Sam. Bad."

Alison suddenly felt sick. The creature's words were fast and feverish, but they conjured up images so clear they could have been memories. Every detail was meticulously clear in her mind. The jagged pain, the smell of Sam's hair, the rough texture of his jacket rubbing against her bare shoulder. She slapped her hands to her ears, not wanting to hear anymore. .

"Sam wouldn't do that," she said. "He saved my life. He… he's a good guy. And if he was a killer, then surely he'd…"

"He forgot," said the girl-thing, and giggled horribly. Whatever was suspending it in the air creaked and threatened to break with the strain of its weight. "He forgot everything in order to repent. To survive. The mist of ignorance fills him and drowns his mind. He is an innocent in all but deeds. Good boy, bad boy, changing, dead. You love him, Alison. Love him? No more. Not now, for you are me. Were me. Me, me, ME."

Alison screamed. She couldn't help it; her skull felt as if something was trying to break its way out from the inside. Desperate to stop it, she knocked her head against the ground and howled hysterically. The girl-thing's words were bouncing back and forth, taunting her.

"You were me. Are me. You are Jewel. Alison is dead. Be me again. You can't love Sam. He is poison. He is death. He must die."

"No," said Alison. The sensation inside worsened, until it was as if claws were tearing her brain apart. "Sam's my friend. And I'm not you! I have my own life, a mother…"

"_My_ mother," the girl-thing said. "Give in. Game over. You are me, and I am you. Accept me. Hold my hand, and let the pain go away."

The girl-thing shuddered and bowed low, reaching for Alison with writhing members. She batted them fiercely away, refusing to submit to them. Her trust in Sam was too great to give in. He had done nothing but aid her from the second they met. He would never hurt her, or anyone else...

_Yes, he would._

He had once struck at her and held a gun to her head. His eyes had been wild, desperate, maddened with fear, like a cornered animal's. He had been terrified of her. She had seen it in his face. But then Sam had recognised her and calmed down at once. He had been so very relieved.

_He thought I was somebody else,_ thought Alison. _He thought I was…_

_Jewel._

She glanced at the girl-thing. It swayed above her, whispering under its breath as if telling her dirty secrets. It was, in its way. For now Alison understood, and with a rattling sigh she upturned her shivering palms.

"Yes. You… I… am Jewel. I accept you."

And so the girl-thing smiled with rotted teeth, and the greyness descended upon them.

* * *

Hour after unintelligible hour passed before Alison could see again.

The milky fog cleared from her vision. She blinked, and looked warily about her. The girl-thing had gone. She was alone. Alison tried to sit up, and found that her body was chained down onto a cold metal gurney. Her wrists and ankles appeared to be restrained. She moved them gingerly. They were clasped in heavy manacles, impossible to break. There was no point even to try.

Alison forgot them for now. Her attention had been caught by the rows and rows of bars on each side of her.

_A cage._

How ironic, she mused, to be trapped when the truth had been set free. How cruel.

Something rattled to her left. Alison turned to find herself staring straight into Sam's eyes. He stared back, sallow and sweating, with a face like ancient stone. His lips trembled.

"No," he whispered. "No way."

"Hi, Sam," said Alison. She braved a smile, a weak ghost of her former grin. "All came back, didn't it? You know what you did to Jew… me."

"No!"

"You killed me, Sam. Somehow I'm still here. I don't feel dead, but we both know you did it. Right?"

Sam's staggered back from the cage, dragging his hands through his grease-ridden hair. His skin was white, and vomit stained his shirt. He was a mess. It panicked Alison to see him like this. He seemed disjointed, out of sync with himself. She couldn't understand what was wrong.

Then she realised.

His sanity was slipping away, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"You said you hated me," croaked Sam. "You told me again and again, and I never let myself believe it was true. But it was. That's why you came back for me."

"That's not true."

"You wanted people to find out about me," Sam continued. "So they'd lock me away. They'll hunt me down. You knew it all along. You pretended to be a defenceless little kid to reel me in. Yeah, that's right."

Sam nodded to himself, clawing at his own face as if trying tear it away. His nails drew blood and ripped away shreds of skin, but he didn't seem to notice the pain. He just moved on to his hands and throat until they too were a weeping mass.

He was trying to cleanse himself.

"A few days ago I wanted to die," said Sam. "But Corrigan, that bastard, saved me. Why? Did he wanna torture me, Jewel? Well, that doesn't matter now. I don't want that anymore."

"Don't you?" asked Alison. She looked at Sam sadly and felt something twist inside her. "You got nothing to live for, Sam. You're a monster, and that's how everyone's gonna treat you when they found out what you did."

Sam flinched.

"Maybe they won't," he said slowly.

"They_ will_," said Alison. "I'll tell them. I… I have to."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, and he gulped thickly. His fingers twitched. "I know. "

Alison spotted the revolver in his hand and felt tears leap into the corners of her eyes. She let them fall, so that they rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the gurney beneath her. Sam looked at her and for a split-second she thought that he would faint. But then he approached her cage, and fumbled with the closest bars. He had found the door, and with a brief fumbling he pulled it open. The hinges shrieked as if in pain. Alison winced. The sound cut far too close to home for her to bear.

"Sam, please go away," she begged him, as he pressed the gun to her sticky brow. "You had a chance to be good, and…"

"I wasted it," said Sam, and his voice choked on the words. He looked away, but Alison could still see the moisture glistening between his blood-soaked lids. "God, I wish I'd run away."

Alison sensed the movement of his finger on the trigger. She was overwhelmed with a flood of sorrow, rage, hatred and loss that only grew as Sam bent over her. She pressed her lips to his in a wild impulse that caught him by surprise. He did not indulge or even enjoy it. He simply allowed her caress, mouth cool and dispassionate.

Alison hated him.

Her teeth caught his tongue, and she relished the flavour of his curdled blood. Then Sam drew back, and the taste grew foul on her tongue.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I swear."

Sam touched her cheek, and whilst still forcing the gun to her head he smiled at her. Alison's stomach turned to see this turn of joy. It showed that no matter how wrought with misery he seemed to be, Sam was as much a monster as he had been before. His soul was damned, thoughts tainted beyond recovery. He was dead to her already

Sam's grip tightened on the trigger. Alison squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The cold butt of the revolver burned her brow.

"I love you," she said, and she meant it. Love is always true, no matter how tainted and broken it has become.

So with honest adoration, she threw back her head and screamed as her gullet split itself apart. Scarlet tentacles, hewn from arterial blood, solidified and tangled in a crimson noose around Sam's exposed throat. The gun fell from his grip with a clatter as he fought to tear them away. The pale of his cheeks flushed, eyes bulging from his skull in disbelieving terror. Alison granted him no mercy, no matter how hard he struggled. She arched her spine to allow the passage of hidden chains. They circled Sam in a grotesque mockery of dance, re-enacting the manner in which he had slaughtered Jewel. Loving, worshipping, they tore his trousers from him and sweetly sodomized him.

His choked yells of agony served only to echo the cries of the deceased. Alison laughed as she plundered him. It felt good to kill, to inflict, to take revenge in the plainest form. It filled her with an unimaginable joy beyond anything she had ever known before.

Her grip tightened. Bones cracked. Sam let out a sound like a cross between a sob and a scream, his fingernails digging into the tentacles in an effort to tear them away. But then the breath caught in his throat and he became limp as a child's plaything. Alison shook him, causing his broken neck to snap back and forth alarmingly. There was no response.

Gently, she untwined her members from his body, letting him slip to the floor with a soft thud. He rolled onto his back and was perfectly still. He was so white, so motionless, that he could have been carved in stone. Lifelessness had made him beautiful. It was then that Alison truly realised he was dead. The notion devastated her. She pressed her face against the iron gurney and wept in earnest. She mourned her friend, who had been so kind to her in such a desolate place, and her lover, who had brought her knowledge of the carnal world.

But most of all she grieved for herself, for she knew that she was no better than that which she had killed, and that she in her heart belonged to him. Her time had passed days ago. She should be dead, yet here she stayed. Trapped in an endless purgatory.

Alison had been summoned by the haunted imaginings of her victim. Now he was gone, only the wisps of his fancy remained. In killing him she had put an end to herself. She was a metaphor in this fog-ridden dream, a ghost in a town whose power stemmed from a lake of the drowned. Her consciousness was nothing, meant nothing.

_I was born from death,_ thought Alison. _So, in a way, I never lived. It was all just a beautiful nightmare…_

She began to slip away, her heart a pool of ash inside her. Gladly, she welcomed this decay.

_Life _is _but a dream._

* * *

Corrigan entered the cage, stepping over the body of Sam Reeves with an air of distaste. He saw what the beast had done to him, and nodded his satisfaction. It often ended this way with those who sought salvation. They were destroyed by the dark inside them, and Corrigan would have no part in it. He cleaned his spectacles upon his sleeve and blinked at the gurney to his left. It was empty but for a sheen of grey dust and something else that glistened in the poor light. Curious, he poured over it and was surprised at what he found.

A single tear; shed, forgotten.

Alone.


	16. Good Ending 1

**A/N: Here is the first good ending. Sorry it took so long. Please Read and Review xxx**

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**Good Ending 1- In Dreams There Is Salvation

Sam hated himself, inside and out.

With listless fingers, he wiped the tears from his swollen eyes and raised his head. The guilt of his what he had done plagued his mind. To him, it seemed as if all the goodness in him had been torn away like a dirty bed sheet. He felt hollow and half-dead. Up until now, Sam had genuinely believed he was a decent person. Ignorance of his own cruelty had made him a hero and an honourable man. He had risked life and limb to save Alison's life, but knowing now that he had once killed her made the act defunct. Sam had been cheated of happiness. Everything he thought he knew was a lie, but he would rather have that than become this vile person again.

"It's not fair," Sam said aloud. "I… I changed. _Why_ did I have to remember?"

He tried to stand up, and couldn't. Bile bubbled in his gullet and he found himself vomiting down his shirt. It wasn't sickness that made him do so; it was disgust. The thought of killing and violating a little girl was too much to bear. He and his past self were two different people- one benevolent, one hopelessly sadistic. It was impossible for Sam to believe that he himself had committed that terrible crime.

Belly heaving, he stared at his grubby hands. Surely they could not have groped, slaughtered, taken a life. Yet they had, and it tainted him. As much as he tried to convince himself that he was not responsible, Sam knew what he had done.

Fraught with despair, he crawled up to the cage and smashed his head against it.

"Take it away!" he screamed. "I don't want this! I don't want any of it! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please just take it away!"

Pain blossomed, but Sam no longer cared. It was better than thinking, better than dwelling on his evil. He readied himself to repeat the action. As he did so, the girl in the cage stirred and moaned groggily to herself. She called his name, but Sam wouldn't listen. Jewel was dead and gone. Alison had never truly existed. The thing behind the rusted bars was just a hallucination on his part. It would go away soon.

But still it crooned to him, mumbling in a strange, drunken tone that made his heart squeeze.

"Sssaamm, what's wrong?" it slurred, tugging weakly at the manacles. "What's goin' on? I feel… funny. Am I sick?"

Sam shoved his fingers deep into his ears.

"Shut up!" he cried. "You're don't exist! You're not here! Leave me alone!"

The girl raised herself as high as her chains would allow. Her head hung over the edge, matted hair swinging like rats tails. In the dim light, Sam saw that it was black as tar. The golden shine of Jewel's perfect curls had gone. He tried to stop himself looking and found that he could not. He recognised the sharp features and glittering eyes and felt ill.

"You're not real," he said softly. Tears welled again, but he simply dashed them away. "Go away."

The girl frowned. She looked deceptively confused. Yawning, she pushed her hands through the bars of the cage and touched Sam's filthy cheek. He grasped her fingers in his. They were warm, warm and solid, with bitten nails and scratches here and there. Shocked, he pushed them away. It wasn't possible. He must be going crazy.

"Sam, I don't understand!" said the girl. "What's the matter? Is it because I ran away? I'm sorry. I… I was mad. And I think I fell or something. Maybe my head and knocked myself out. I feel really woozy and… I don't remember what happened. It's like my mind's been wiped. I know it sounds like a stupid excuse, but it's true."

Sam opened his mouth, then closed it again. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Clumsily, he dragged himself up onto his feet and wrenched the cage door open. He was hit instantly by a cold wind that wrought him full of gooseflesh. Pausing for a moment, he took a shuddering breath. The girl did not fade, or change in shape. She remained as she was, frightened and bemused on the old gurney. Sam was afraid to approach her. He stood at her side and wrapped his arms around himself for warmth.

"Please forgive me," he said. "I've… done something bad, and I wanna pay for it in any way I can. I hurt you, or at least someone like you, and I won't be able to live with myself unless you accept my apology. I don't know… I just can't… it's too difficult to explain. You wouldn't wanna know the details anyway. But just knowing the thing I did is killing me, Alison. I'm begging you to help me."

Alison stared at him. Her gaze became focused, intelligent, and distantly sad. She smiled, and reached for Sam's hand again. Then she kissed it on the knuckles, and her lips were welcomingly cool.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Sam, but I forgive you anyway. You've saved my life twice now. A lot of people would have just left my ass to die, but you're different. You're the first friend I've had in a long time. That must mean something, right?"

Sam nodded. His throat was too tight to speak.

"Goody-goody," said Alison, with a hint of mocking, and rattled the manacles. "Now, these things are kinda uncomfortable. Would you help me out of them, please?"

Fumbling wildly, Sam obeyed. The second Alison was free she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, ignoring the vomit and the dirt completely. Her head burrowed into his shoulder, demanding his attention. Sam floundered. He wasn't sure how to react to her. He felt dazed, drunk, even, and incredulous that she had given him another chance. She claimed not to recall anything, but Sam doubted that. Surely she must sense that she was- or had been -dead. But her face was empty, and from the gentle sound of her laughter it became apparent that she had no idea.

Sam had been freed of his damnation. Overcome with a crippling relief, he sat upon the gurney and closed his eyes. Alison clung to him like a tiny child. Her heartbeat throbbed in his ears, singing of her life, her being, the truth. She whispered to him, begging him to take her away with him.

He accepted. He owed it to her, considering all he had done.

* * *

Leaving Silent Hill had been difficult. Alison kept having dizzy spells, complaining that she felt woozy before collapsing, her legs folding up neatly beneath her. Sam was forced to carry her, despite the ever-throbbing ache in his shoulder. He kept a sharp look out for Corrigan or any monsters that may appear, but the town appeared to be abandoned. Only the fog had remained. The empty streets were like a labyrinth, many of the roads broken or blocked with mounds of rubble. Sam was paranoid that they would be trapped forever, and was on the verge of a breakdown when finally he discovered a way out.

They found an abandoned car in an overgrown hedge, windows smashed and doors dented in several places. By some miracle the engine still worked. After securing Alison in the passenger seat, Sam reversed back onto the road and headed north. He had no idea where he was going. He just wanted to drive as far away as he could possibly get. For two days and nights they drove, never stopping for food or rest unless they were desperate for it. Eventually Sam found a small town called Eden's Gate, which seemed quiet and subdued. The residents were not welcoming, but Sam had not expected them to be. He rented a small house overlooking the nearby lake with the little money he had on him, and there they stayed for several months.

For a while, things went very well. Alison grew to love him, and he her. Sam was content to sit indoors, listening to music on the radio for hours on end whilst Alison talked to him about sweetly incessant things. They were happy there, in their peaceful house. The bad memories had faded, and so had Sam's concerns.

But one day Sam started to realise that not everything was as perfect as it seemed. The town was slowly beginning to deteriorate, and nobody else had noticed it. Buildings grew shabby and neglected, and the gutters were clogged with plastic dolls and dampened photographs. Sam retrieved one once, holding it aloft between finger and thumb, before quickly tossing it away again. It had depicted Jewel, dead and eyeless, pointed directly towards him in silent accusation. Sam had suffered nightmares for days after seeing that. He tried to tell Alison about it, but she seemed oddly unsympathetic.

"Dreaming of dreams paves a path of dementia," she mumbled cryptically into the pillows. Sam had tried to laugh it off. He asked her where she had read the phrase, to which Alison grunted and said, "You know what I mean, deep down. You just don't wanna think about it, that's all."

"So what your saying is I'm crazy?" asked Sam, half-joking. Alison shrugged, nuzzling his side with her forehead. She wouldn't speak any more. Sam pushed it from his mind and went to sleep, trying not to think of what she could possibly have meant.

Over the next few days, he began to understand. His life was built up almost entirely of rituals and routines, repeating the same actions again and again like a tired old music box. Everything was bland and grey as cobwebs in a spinster's attic. Alison appeared not to care. The spark had gone from her eyes now. It had been like that ever since she left Silent Hill. Thinking about it gave Sam a creeping sensation in his guts. He forced himself to drive down there once when it got too much, leaving Alison at home in bed. She was unwell- her movements were languorous, and her skin was horribly sallow. Sam found that he missed her, yet it was too late to turn back. He pulled up outside the hotel they had stayed in, catching sight of a familiar face at the window.

"Corrigan," he said flatly. The elegant bastard was smiling at him. "You know about this town. You know what it does to people. Explain what's happening to me."

Sam had not needed to go into detail. Corrigan understood what he was talking about at once.

"Do you know what purgatory is?" he enquired. Sam nodded, but Corrigan continued regardless. "It is between Heaven and Hell, a place where sins are atoned for. That is where you are, Mr. Reeves, no matter how far you travel. It is a state out of death, where all is a dream of your own invention."

"Okay," said Sam. He scratched his head. "I see. But how do I… wake up?"

Corrigan eyed him disdainfully.

"Be thankful that you are here. If you had not repented, you would have died like the dog you are and the world would not have mourned your passing. Purgatory serves not only as a place for sinners to redeem themselves, Mr. Reeves but also a prison for those beyond pity and punishment. That is why you feel distanced from the world."

Sam took a step back. The blood ran from his face. Corrigan laughed at him, shaking his head.

"Don't look so afraid, sir. Be content with what you have here. You are safe, and you have all that you ever wanted. To you, it might seem like Hell, but in truth it is… an Eden. Go back to your tasteless little town. Take pleasure in your dreary schedules, for you are blessed with life even in this form."

And so Sam did as he was told. Alison was waiting for him on the doorstep. She wore a crimson dress, lips painted the same shade, and her throat glittered with rubies. Sam approached her carefully, taking his time.

"Hey, Sammy. So you finally dragged your lazy ass home," said Alison. Her old mischief was back with a vengeance. "Do you see now? Do you see?"

Sam found himself nodding, although he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Yeah," he replied. "I think so."

He kissed her on the cheek, like a father would his daughter. Somehow, doing sop made him feel as if a weight had been lifted from inside him. Alison took his hand and made him sit with her on the porch. Her legs, pale and hairless, were too close to his. Sam glanced away from them, and found himself staring into her shrewd, dark eyes. They saw things that he did not.

"I'm a monster," he said. "I hope you know that by now, Al."

Alison giggled, nestling her head in his lap.

"Sure I do. But I think I'll let it pass…"

Her lips brushed against his ear. He felt her hot breath on him and realised how glad he was to have her here with him.

"…Just this once."


	17. Bad Ending 2

A/N: Oh dear, I'm very sorry this took so long. Well, please Read and Review. I hope you enjoy it! xx

* * *

Bad Ending 2- Death is Salvation

Sam staggered through the corpse-ridden basement, putting as much distance between himself and the cage as he possibly could. It was empty now, nothing inside but the hospital gurney. He had only realised this after screaming at the girl for forgiveness of all he had done. His words had been answered by silence, for Sam was no longer plagued with her illusion. And so he ran, frenzied with a mixture of horror and confusion.

Sam reached the elevator and squeezed inside, pressing a random button with the square of his thumb. He didn't care which one he'd chosen. It didn't matter; nothing did. Everything good he had done in Silent Hill had been part of a terrible lie. He _wasn't_ a good person, and never had been. Corrigan had known that all along. The only reason he had saved Sam from death was because he wanted to prolong his suffering.

Sam's gut twisted. He'd _suffered_ all right.

The elevator began to ascend, jerking and hissing unsteadily on its way. Sam slumped against the wall, burying his head in his knees. The material of his trousers chafed his skin. It was good to feel something, albeit unpleasant. It proved that he was alive, and that there were ways of finishing this. But, unfortunately, no ways of going back. Not anymore.

_I can't go home,_ Sam thought miserably._ If I do, the cops will find me, and my face'll be all over the news. They'll probably execute me, and if they don't I'll be locked away for good. It's better if I stay here. I don't want anybody to see me. Not knowing what I did to Jewel._

Sam wrung his hands absent-mindedly. The palms felt stiff and uncomfortable. He turned them over, wrinkling his nose at their smell. Then he spat on them and tried to dry them off on his shirt. To his surprise he found that that it, too, was filthy. Puzzled, he took up the sleeve of his jacket and squeezed it.

Blood trickled onto his thigh.

Revolted, he tore off the jacket and threw it at the opposite wall. There was a wet sucking sound as it slid down and crumpled to the floor. Sam shuddered, rubbing his now bare arms to warm them. He froze, feeling wetness.

Death rolled over him in a vivid hallucination. He could hear Jewel's sobs, feel her flesh squirming up against his. The ghost of her gaping throat pushed against his fingers, letting him touch her exposed windpipe as she gurgled on her last breath. Sam cried out in horror and scrambled, spider-like, across the floor. Glass shards crunched under his knees. They dragged on his skin, hot as a whore's mouth and burning, _burning_ him. The smell of smouldering flesh rose, gagging him.

But when Sam felt for bubbling blisters there was nothing but smooth, clammy skin.

It was then he knew he was going mad. The mind could only take so much, and now it was cracking under the weight of his colossal guilt and self-loathing.

The fear of insanity made him a child again. Sam crammed himself into the corner of the elevator and clapped both hands over his eyes, pressing down so hard that his vision split into coloured stars. Every time it looked like they were fading he increased the pressure until it felt like his head would burst.

"Five minutes, just five goddam minutes," he muttered, as sweat peeled from his brow. "Let me last till then. "

Sam sat there until, after what seemed like hours, the elevator drew to a halt and opened its doors with a soft hiss. He wasted no time in getting out in the hallway beyond. It was the same floor his hotel room was on- the room in which he and Alison had shared a bed. Now Sam knew he had slept alone,and somehow the idea disturbed him. He hurried down the corridor, trying not to look at the door as he passed it.

Looking around him, Sam noticed that there was something wet and glistening on the walls. It squirmed like a web of worms, seeping over the drab wallpaper in a disgusting fashion. Portions of it swelled and burst, splattering out in a gross mockery of arterial blood. Sam winced, his gorge rising. He was convinced that he was going to be sick.

Keeping his head lowered, he headed for the staircase leading down into the hotel lobby. He made slow progress. Not only were the corridors long and confusing, but Sam was also forced to stop and retch dryly every so often. It was not the rotten stench of the hallway that sickened him- it was himself. Fragments of memories kept sliding back to him piece by piece, each worse than the last. It was almost as if they were taunting him. Sam wasn't sure how much more he could stand, but at last he reached the stairs and descended two steps at a time. He hit the floor too fast and nearly fell, but by some blessed miracle he managed to keep his balance.

Sam straightened up and looked around. The lobby door was wide open, seemingly awaiting his arrival. He went directly through it to the room beyond. He was stunned to find the place in disarray, a stark contrast with the obsessive tidiness it had once possessed. Now it looked like a slaughterhouse. The wallpaper and carpet was doused in blood, and ropes of entrails spooled messily on Corrigan's desk. There was some kind of creature cowering among them. It groaned and quivered, apparently in pain.

"Who's there?" Sam asked uncertainly.

He thought that it may perhaps be Corrigan himself, but he was greatly mistaken. The creature that crawled out into the open was too small to be a grown man. It prostrated itself before him, its obviously feminine genitals vulgarly on display. Sam uttered a disgusted cry at the sight of it. The thing appeared to be a headless child with its entire spinal cord removed. In its place was a snake that squirmed grotesquely within the open wound. While Sam watched speechlessly the decapitated girl ripped it from her back and held it out to him. Words from a long-ago church sermon ran through his head-

_"…A man offered a serpent to the sun and prayed for salvation…"_

-before the girl dug in her fingernails and tore the snake in two. She then rolled onto her back, jerking violently, her youthful body both hideous and alluring. Her gore slicked thighs opened with a wet squelch as if inviting him in. Sam was utterly revolted by this hideous show. He rushed out of the lobby and out into the empty street, slamming the door so hard behind him that it almost shattered the frame.

Now that he was outside he felt much calmer than before. Gingerly, he wiped the sweat from his face and peered around him. The streets were utterly deserted, vacant of monsters and people alike. Fog obscured everything but the vague shapes of buildings on either side of him. Sam relaxed slightly. It was peaceful here. He could almost allow himself to forget everything, to wallow in the eerie quiet of the town. Perhaps if he remained here he wouldn't have to suffer anymore. There was nobody around to punish him, to judge him for his sickening deeds. There was only Sam, and the streets, and the unmoving mist.

Or so he thought.

A soft rustle came from somewhere to his right. Sam blinked, eyes narrowed. There was something moving in the swirls of fog, tall and unnaturally shaped. It eventually emerged with a jerking roll of its shoulders and stopped dead in the road. Sam dropped to his knees. Words could not describe the effect the beast's presence had on him. It tilted its head painfully to one side to survey him, its eyeless gaze cold and condemning. Sam gulped as a wave of primal awe washed over him. He grovelled in the dirt, forehead pressed to the cool tarmac of the road. Somehow he sensed that this thing was a God, or an angel at least, sent to reprimand him for the evil he had committed. Sam knew that he must comply with it. The primitive darkness radiated by the being threatened an unimaginable punishment if he did not.

"Please," Sam implored. "Listen to me. I know that what I did was a terrible thing, and that I can't be forgiven. Hell, _I_ wouldn't forgive me. Harming a child… it's sick. I know it. I was angry with her, but that's no excuse. I was a monster, no matter what made me do it. But I think, somehow, I've changed."

The figure did not reply. Sam sensed its disapproval and shivered, well aware that he had to plead his case. He didn't want to do it. The words felt slimy in his mouth, the vile pleading of some lowly pervert. That described him, to some extent, but even so he did not like to admit it even to himself.

"I don't know why I loved Jewel like I did," Sam continued. "I guess I had problems of some kind. Mom took me to see a load of different doctors over the years. I… wasn't like other kids. I didn't like to play. Sometimes I came out with things kids shouldn't say, and sometimes I acted out of line, but those things on their own weren't too bad. There was something else- something that didn't start showing itself till I hit seventeen. Mom made me visit this psychiatrist guy. He was famous for his work. People paid good money to see him. My Mom had a lot of faith in him, and because I loved her I trusted her word. But in the end I wasn't happy with what my shrink told me.

"He said I'd developed a complex. It needed serious treatment to fix, and I could end up hurting somebody if I didn't get it. But we couldn't afford the stuff he recommended, so we just carried on with our lives and pretended everything was fine. I buried myself in schoolwork, hoping it would all go away. Ha! Some hope. Neighbours moved in next door- some lady and her sprog, Jewel. I watched them unpack from my bedroom window. At first I didn't feel anything- I was proud of myself, so _stupidly_ proud. But then Mom went and forgot what was wrong with me and let me baby-sit the kid."

Sam gulped and carried on.

"Jewel seemed to like me. She came right up and hugged me, and I felt that old familiar feeling stir up inside me. Her body was just… so… warm. Yeah, I guess I knew deep down the shrink was right. But you know what? I didn't care. I _liked_ what I was doing. Oh… Oh my God."

Sam paused, the true horror of his actions hitting home. He felt his gorge rise and choked it back.

"I… I _liked _it. Even when she begged me to stop I loved every second of it. It went on for four whole damn years. How _could_ I? What kind of sick fuck gets off on hurting a little girl?"

Sam pressed both hands to his face, tears squeezing through his interlocked fingers. Humiliation and self-loathing washed over him, leaving a foul taste in his mouth. This revelation about himself was too much to bear. He remembered how naïve he had been, running around the town in search of answers. So optimistic in his bliss of falsities. Sam had truly believed that he was a good person, despite remembering fragments about Jewel here and there. Now all that was gone, and he was left soiled and depraved in the absence of his innocence.

"What happens now?" Sam asked aloud. "I can't leave this town. I'm a murderer, for God's sake. So… what do I do?"

Even as Sam spoke, he knew the answer. The sheer hopelessness of it hit him with a crushing blow. Now he knew why Corrigan had saved him from dying. He had known that he wasn't yet truly sorry for what he had done, that he was only trying to kill himself to escape from imprisonment. Sam had been callous, selfish, thinking only of his own miserable skin. But Silent Hill had made him see the true horror of his actions, and only with that realisation could he be truly free.

Sam let out a long, ragged breath. He cast a glance towards the God in the fog, and was not surprised to see that it had gone. It was like Alison; there only to serve a purpose. He didn't need it any more.

Swallowing tightly, he slipped his hand inside the pocket of his jacket and tried to remember happiness. It seemed almost an alien concept now. Joy was so difficult to conceive when terror churned so strongly inside you.

Sam's hand began to shake. He readjusted his fingers and slowly, slowly, withdrew them from his pocket. They were slick with sweat, making them slippery and difficult to grasp with. Sam wiped them dry and tightened their grip. He opened his mouth to allow them inside. Breath wheezed through his throat in an ugly whistle. His fear was choking him. But he could not afford to be coward now. Not anymore.

Sam wanted so badly to be able to apologise, but he knew the gesture would be wasted. Instead he simply sat in silence, allowing the fog to roll soundlessly over him.

"Oh, Jewel," he thought wretchedly.

For a split-second he could almost smell her sweet scent around him. He tilted back his head, almost expecting her cool touch on his cheek. But it never came. She was cold and dead in her room; skin greyed into an uncharacteristic ugliness. Sam pictured her in life. Lovely, delicate, doll-like in her fragile charm, her mouth filled with love and sweetness. She had been so very beautiful.

And, with that image imprinted on his mind, he pulled the trigger.

* * *

In a room within a forgotten hospital wing something stirs and begins to weep. Its hair is starting to fall out, and its features are slowly twisting back into their once monstrous form. Limbs, pale and pretty, twitch and clench restlessly at its sides. It licks its lips, tries to remember how to speak, but its tongue is stunted and trapped behind sealed lips. Soon the sisters will come and bind its face in bandages, hiding the remains of its false beauty. It doesn't want that to happen. It is afraid of losing its thoughts, its mind, everything that makes it real and alive. But already its memories are beginning to fade into a blind blur of rage.

The creature sits up straight, spine cracking with effort, and fumbles for the scalpel tucked into its hospital gown. It slashes sightlessly towards its mouth, forcing it open. The blood tastes strangely sweet. The creature, lost in this new delight, almost forgets why it cut itself in the first place. Then it recalls, clears its throat, tries to stop itself twitching so violently back and forth. Despite its efforts, it is only able to croak a single word before the last of humanity is lost.

"_Sssamm…"_


End file.
